tihravy  of  Che  theological  ^tminavy 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 
PRESENTED  BY 

The  Estate  of  Rev.  Robert  0. 
Kirkwood 

bV  4211  ,65    190  7 

Brooks,  Phillips,  1835-189; 

Lectures  on  preaching 


LECTURES  ON  PREACTING'' 


DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 


DIVINITY  SCHOOL  OF  YALE  COLLEGE 


IN  JANUARY  AND  FEBRUARY,   1877 


BY  THE 

Rt.  Rev.  PHILLIPS  BROOKS,  D.D. 


NEW  YORK 

E.  P.   BUTTON    &    COMPANY 

31  WEST   TWENTY-THIRD   STREET 
1907 


Ty:'- 


Copyright,  1877, 
E.  P.  BUTTON  AND  COMPANY. 


Ube  ftnicficrboclter  press,  "View  £?orfi 


IFrom  the  Records  of  tlie  Corporation  of  Yale  College,  April  12, 

1871.] 

"  Voted,  To  accept  the  offer  of  Mr.  Henry  N.  Sage,  of  Brook- 
lyn, of  the  sum  of  ten  thousand  dollars,  for  the  founding  of  a 
lectureship  in  the  Theological  Department,  in  a  branch  of  Pas- 
toral Theology,  to  be  designated  '  The  Lyman  Beecher  Lecture- 
ship on  Preaching,'  to  be  filled  from  time  to  time,  upon  the 
appointment  of  the  Corporation,  by  a  minister  of  the  Gospel,  of 
any  evangelical  denomination,  who  has  been  markedly  success- 
ful in  the  special  work  of  the  Christian  ministry." 


CONTElsTTS. 


LECTURE  PAGE 

I.    The  Two  Elements  in  Preaching 1 

n.    The  Preacher  Himself  35 

ni.    The  Preacher  in  his  Work 72 

rV.    The  Idea  of  the  Sermon 108 

V.    The  Making  of  the  Sermon  143 

VI.    The  Congregation 180 

VII.    The  Ministry  for  our  Age 217 

Vni.    The  Value  of  the  Human  Soul 255 


LECTURES.  ON  .PREACHING. 


THE   TWO   ELEMENTS   IN   PREACHING. 


O INCE  I  received,  some  months  ago,  the  invitation 
'^  to  deliver  these  lectures  which  I  begin  to-day,  I 
have  been  led  to  ponder  much  upon  the  principles  by 
which  I  have  only  half  consciously  been  living  and 
working  for  many  years.  This  is  part  of  the  debt 
which  I  owe  to  those  who  have  honored  me  with  their 
invitation.  It  is  interesting  to  one's  self  to  examine 
and  recognize  and  arrange  the  ideas  which  have  been 
slowly  taking  shape  within  him  during  the  busy  years 
of  work.  I  shall  be  very  glad  if  you  too  are  inter- 
ested, as  I  try  to  recount  them  to  you,  and  very  thank- 
ful if  you  find  in  them  any  help  or  inspiration. 

The  personal  character  of  this  lectureship  is  very 
evident.  It  is  always  to  be  filled  by  preachers  in  act- 
ive work,  who  are  to  come  and  speak  to  you  of  preach- 
ing. It  is  not  a  Homiletical  Professorship.  It  is  each 
man's  own  life  in  the  ministry  of  which  he  is  to  tell. 

1 


2  LECTUEES  ON  FEE  ACHING, 

But  certainly  you  do  not  expect  from  your  successive 
lecturers  a  series  of  anecdotes  of  what  has  happened 
to  them  in  their  ministry,  nor  a  mere  recital  of  their 
ways  of  working.  It  cannot  be  intended  that  this 
lectureship  should  exalt  the  interviewer  into  an  or- 
ganized and  permanent  institution.  The  hope  must 
rather  be  that  as  each  preacher  speaks  of  our  common 
work  in  his  own  way,  whatever  there  may  be  of  value 
in  his  personal  experience  may  come,  not  directly  but 
indirectly,  into  what  he  says,  and  make  the  privilege 
of  preaching  shine  for  the  moment  in  your  eyes  with 
the  same  kind  of  light  which  it  has  won  in  his. 

I  feel  as  I  begin  something  of  the  fear  which  I 
have  often  felt  in  commencing  a  new  sermon.  It  has 
often  seemed  to  me  as  if  the  vast  amount  of  preach- 
ing which  people  hear  must  have  one  bad  effect,  in 
leaving  on  their  minds  a  vague  impression  that  this 
Christian  hfe  to  which  they  are  so  continually  urged 
must  be  a  very  difficult  and  complicated  thing  that  it 
should  take  such  a  multitude  of  definitions  to  make  it 
clear.  And  so  there  is  some  danger  lest  these  multi- 
plied lectures  upon  preaching  should  give  to  those 
who  are  preparing  to  preach  an  uncomfortable  feeling 
that  the  work  of  preaching  is  a  thing  of  many  rules, 
hard  to  understand,  and  needing  a  great  deal  of  com- 
mentary. For  my  part,  I  am  startled  when  I  think 
how  few  and  simple  are  the  things  which  I  have  to 
say  to  you.     The  principles  which  one  can  recognize 


TKE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.  3 

in  his  ministry  are  very  broad  and  plain.  The  appli- 
cations of  those  principles  are  endless  j  but  I  should 
be  very  sorry  indeed  if  anything  that  I  shall  say 
should  lead  any  of  you  to  confound  the  few  plain 
principles  with  their  many  varied  applications,  and  so 
make  you  think  that  work  complicated  and  diOicult 
which  to  him  who  is  equipped  for  it,  and  loves  it,  is 
the  easiest  and  simplest  work  in  life. 

Let  me  say  one  word  more  in  introduction.  He 
who  is  called  upon  to  give  these  lectures  cannot  but 
remember  that  they  are  given  every  year,  and  that  he 
has  had  very  able  and  faithful  predecessors.  There 
are  certainly,  therefore,  some  things  which  he  may 
venture  to  omit  without  being  supposed  to  be  either 
ignorant  or  careless  of  them.  There  are  certain  first 
principles,  of  primary  importance,  which  he  may  take 
for  granted  in  all  that  he  says.  They  are  so  funda- 
mental, that  they  must  be  always  present,  and  their 
power  must  pervade  every  treatment  of  the  work 
which  is  built  upon  them.  But  they  need  not  be  de- 
liberately stated  anew  each  year.  It  would  make 
these  courses  of  lectures  very  monotonous ;  and  one 
may  venture  to  assume  that  there  are  some  elemen- 
tary principles  upon  whose  truth  all  students  of  the- 
ology are  agreed,  and  whose  importance  they  all  feel. 

I  cannot  begin,  then,  to  speak  to  you  who  are  pre- 
paring for  the  work  of  preaching,  without  congratu- 


4  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

lating  you  most  earnestly  upon  the  prospect  that  lies 
before  you.  I  cannot  help  bearing  witness  to  the 
joy  of  the  life  which  you  anticipate.  There  is  no 
career  that  can  compare  with  it  for  a  moment  in  the 
rich  and  satisfying  relations  into  which  it  brings  a 
man  with  his  fellow-men,  in  the  deep  and  interesting 
insight  which  it  gives  him  into  human  nature,  and  in 
the  chance  of  the  best  culture  for  his  own  character. 
Its  delight  never  grows  old,  its  interest  never  wanes, 
its  stimulus  is  never  exhausted.  It  is  different  to  a 
man  at  each  period  of  his  life ;  but  if  he  is  the  minis- 
ter he  ought  to  be,  there  is  no  age,  from  the  earliest 
years  when  he  is  his  people's  brother  to  the  late  days 
when  he  is  like  a  father  to  the  children  on  whom  he 
looks  down  from  the  pulpit,  in  which  the  ministry 
has  not  some  fresh  charm  and  chance  of  usefulness  to 
offer  to  the  man  whose  heart  is  in  it.  Let  us  never 
think  of  it  in  any  other  way  than  this.  Let  us  rejoice 
with  one  another  that  in  a  world  where  there  are  a 
great  many  good  and  happy  things  for  men  to  do, 
God  has  given  us  the  best  and  happiest,  and  made  us 
preachers  of  His  Truth. 

I  propose  in  this  introductory  lecture  to  lay  before 
you  some  thoughts  which  cover  the  whole  field  which 
we  shall  have  to  traverse ;  and  the  lectures  which  fol- 
low will  be  mainly  applications  and  illustrations  of 
the  principles  which  I  lay  down  to-day.    It  may  make 


THE   TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING,  5 

my  first  lecture  seem  a  little  too  general,  but  perhaps 
it  will  help  us  to  understand  each  other  better  as  we 
go  on. 

What,  then,  is  preaching,  of  which  we  are  to  speak  ? 
It  is  not  hard  to  find  a  definition.  Preaching  is  the 
communication  of  truth  by  man  to  men.  It  has  in  it 
two  essential  elements,  truth  and  personality.  Neither 
of  those  can  it  spare  and  still  be  preaching.  The 
truest  truth,  the  most  authoritative  statement  of  God's 
will,  communicated  in  any  other  way  than  through 
the  personality  of  brother  man  to  men  is  not  preached 
truth.  Suppose  it  written  on  the  sky,  suppose  it  em- 
bodied in  a  book  which  has  been  so  long  held  in  rev- 
erence as  the  direct  utterance  of  God  that  the  vivid 
personality  of  the  men  who  wrote  its  pages  has  well- 
nigh  faded  out  of  it ;  in  neither  of  these  cases  is  there 
any  preaching.  And  on  the  other  hand,  if  men  speak 
to  other  men  that  which  they  do  not  claim  for  truth, 
if  they  use  their  powers  of  persuasion  or  of  entertain- 
ment to  make  other  men  Hsten  to  their  speculations, 
or  do  their  will,  or  applaud  their  cleverness,  that  is  not 
preaching  either.  The  first  lacks  personality.  The 
second  lacks  truth.  And  preaching  is  the  bringing 
of  truth  through  personality.  It  must  have  both  ele- 
ments. It  is  in  the  different  proportion  in  which  the 
two  are  mingled  that  the  difference  between  two  great 
classes  of  sermons  and  preaching  Ues.  It  is  in  the 
defect  of  one  or  the  other  element  that  every  sermon 


6  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

and  preacher  falls  short  of  the  perfect  standard.  It 
is  in  the  absence  of  one  or  the  other  element  that  a 
discourse  ceases  to  be  a  sermon,  and  a  man  ceases  to 
be  a  preacher  altogether. 

If  we  go  back  to  the  beginning  of  the  Christian 
ministry  we  can  see  how  distinctly  and  deliberately 
Jesus  chose  this  method  of  extending  the  knowledge 
of  Himself  throughout  the  world.  Other  methods  no 
doubt  were  open  to  Him,  but  He  deliberately  selected 
this.  He  taught  His  truth  to  a  few  men  and  then 
He  said,  "  Now  go  and  tell  that  truth  to  other  men." 
Both  elements  were  there,  in  John  the  Baptist  who 
prepared  the  way  for  Him,  in  the  seventy  whom  He 
sent  out  before  His  face,  and  in  the  little  company 
who  started  from  the  chamber  of  the  Pentecost  to 
proclaim  the  new  salvation  to  the  world.  If  He  gave 
them  the  power  of  working  miracles,  the  miracles 
themselves  were  not  the  final  purpose  for  which  He 
gave  it.  The  power  of  miracle  was,  as  it  were,  a 
divine  fire  pervading  the  Apostle's  being  and  opening 
his  individuality  on  either  side ;  making  it  more  open 
God- wards  by  the  sense  of  awful  privilege,  making  it 
more  open  man-wards  by  the  impressiveness  and  the 
helpfulness  with  which  it  was  clothed.  Everything 
that  was  peculiar  in  Christ's  treatment  of  those  men 
was  merely  part  of  the  process  by  which  the  Master 
prepared  their  personality  to  be  a  fit  medium  for  the 
communication  of  His  Word.     When  His  treatment 


TRE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PEE  ACHING.  7 

of  them  was  complete,  they  stood  fused  like  glass,  and 
able  to  take  God's  truth  in  perfectly  on  one  side  and 
send  it  out  perfectly  on  the  other  side  of  their  trans- 
parent natures. 

This  was  the  method  by  which  Christ  chose  that 
His  Gospel  should  be  spread  through  the  world.  It 
was  a  method  that  might  have  been  applied  to  the 
dissemination  of  any  truth,  but  we  can  see  why  it  was 
especially  adapted  to  the  truth  of  Christianity.  For 
that  truth  is  preeminently  personal.  However  the 
Gospel  may  be  capable  of  statement  in  dogmatic  form, 
its  truest  statement  we  know  is  not  in  dogma  but 
in  personal  life.  Christianity  is  Christ ;  and  we  can 
easily  understand  how  a  truth  which  is  of  such  pecul- 
iar character  that  a  person  can  stand  forth  and  say 
of  it,  "  I  am  the  Truth,"  must  always  be  best  conveyed 
through,  must  indeed  be  almost  incapable  of  being 
perfectly  conveyed  except  through  personality.  And 
so  some  form  of  preaching  must  be  essential  to  the 
prevalence  and  spread  of  the  knowledge  of  Christ 
among  men.  There  seems  to  be  some  such  meaning 
as  this  in  the  words  of  Jesus  when  He  said  to  His 
disciples,  "  As  my  Father  has  sent  me  into  the  world 
even  so  have  I  sent  you  into  the  world."  It  was 
the  continuation,  out  to  the  minutest  ramifications  of 
the  new  system  of  influence,  of  that  personal  method 
which  the  Incarnation  itseK  had  involved. 

If  this  be  true,  then,  it  estabhshes  the  first  of  all 


8  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

principles  concerning  the  ministry  and  preparation 
for  the  ministry.  Truth  through  Personality  is  our 
description  of  real  preaching.  The  truth  must  come 
really  through  the  person,  not  merely  over  liis  lips, 
not  merely  into  his  understanding  and  out  through 
his  pen.  It  must  come  through  his  character,  his 
affections,  his  whole  intellectual  and  moral  being.  It 
must  come  genuinely  through  him.  I  think  that, 
granting  equal  intelligence  and  study,  here  is  the 
great  difference  which  we  feel  between  two  preachers 
of  the  Word.  The  Gospel  has  come  over  one  of  them 
and  reaches  us  tinged  and  flavored  with  his  superficial 
characteristics,  belittled  with  his  littleness.  The  Gos- 
pel has  come  through  the  other,  and  we  receive  it 
impressed  and  winged  with  all  the  earnestness  and 
strength  that  there  is  in  him.  In  the  first  case  the 
man  has  been  but  a  printing  machine  or  a  trumpet. 
In  the  other  case  he  has  been  a  true  man  and  a  real 
messenger  of  God.  We  know  how  the  views  which 
theologians  have  taken  of  the  agency  of  the  Bible 
writers  in  their  work  differ  just  here.  There  have 
been  those  who  would  make  them  mere  passive  in- 
struments. The  thought  of  our  own  time  has  more 
and  more  tended  to  consider  them  the  active  messen- 
gers of  the  Word  of  God.  This  is  the  higher  thought 
of  inspiration.  And  this  is  the  only  true  thought  of 
the  Christian  preachership.  I  think  that  one  of  the 
most  perplexing  points  in  a  man's  ministry  is  in  a  cer- 


THE   TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.  9 

tain  variation  of  this  power  of  transmission.  Some- 
times you  are  all  open  on  both  sides,  open  to  God  and 
to  fellow-man.  At  other  times  something  clogs  and 
clouds  your  transparency.  You  will  know  the  differ- 
ences of  the  sermons  which  you  preach  in  those  two 
conditions,  and,  however  little  they  describe  it  to  them- 
selves or  know  its  causes,  your  congregation  will  feel 
the  difference  full  well. 

But  this,  as  I  began  to  say,  decrees  for  us  in  general 
what  the  preparation  for  the  ministry  is.  It  must  be 
nothing  less  than  the  making  of  a  man.  It  cannot 
be  the  mere  training  to  certain  tricks.  It  cannot  be 
even  the  furnishing  with  abundant  knowledge.  It 
must  be  nothing  less  than  the  kneading  and  temper- 
ing of  a  man's  whole  nature  till  it  becomes  of  such  a 
consistency  and  quality  as  to  be  capable  of  transmis- 
sion. This  is  the  largeness  of  the  preacher's  culture. 
It  is  not  for  me,  standing  here  or  anywhere,  to  depre- 
ciate the  work  which  our  theological  schools  do.  It 
certainly  is  not  my  place  to  undervalue  the  usefulness 
of  lectures  on  preaching,  or  books  on  clerical  manners. 
But  none  of  these  things  make  the  preacher.  You 
are  surprised,  when  you  read  the  biographies  of  the 
most  successful  ministers,  to  see  how  small  a  part  of 
their  cultui*e  came  from  their  professional  schools.  It 
is  a  real  part  but  it  is  a  small  part.  Everything  that 
opens  their  lives  towards  God  and  towards  man  makes 
part  of  their  education.      The   professional   schools 


10  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

furnish  them.  The  whole  world  is  the  school  that 
makes  them.  This  is  the  value  of  the  biographies  of 
the  great  preachers  if  we  can  only  read  them  largely 
enough,  if  we  can  read  them  not  in  a  small  desire  to 
copy  their  details  of  Hving,  but  in  a  large  sympathetic 
wish  to  know  what  their  life  was,  to  see  how  the  men 
became  the  men  they  were.  This  is  the  value  of  Bax- 
ter's story  of  himself,  so  unsuspiciously  confident  of 
the  reader's  interest  in  everything  that  concerns  him, 
or  of  Robertson's  painful  but  precious  history,  or  of 
the  strong,  manly,  constantly  advancing  life  of  Nor- 
man Macleod.  I  think  that  either  of  these  books 
might  be  the  ruin  of  a  young  minister  who  read  it  for 
the  methods  of  his  work,  as  either  of  them  might  be 
the  making  of  him  if  he  read  it  for  the  spii'it  and  the 
spiritual  history  of  the  man  of  whom  it  told  the  story. 
In  a  time  which  abounds  in  biographies  as  ours  does, 
especially  in  the  biographies  of  preachers,  it  is  worth 
while,  I  am  sure,  to  remember  that  another  man's  Life 
may  be  the  noblest  inspiration  or  the  heaviest  bur- 
den, according  as  we  take  its  spirit  into  our  spirit, 
or  only  bind  its  methods  like  a  fagot  of  dry  sticks 
upon  our  back. 

One  other  consequence  of  the  fundamental  char- 
acter of  preaching  which  I  have  stated  must  be  the 
perpetual  function  of  the  pulpit.  Every  now  and 
then  we  hear  some  speculations  about  the  prospects 


TRE   TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.  11 

of  preaching.  Will  men  continue  to  preach  and  will 
other  men  continue  to  go  and  hear  them?  Books  are' 
multiplying  enormously.  Any  man  may  feel  reason- 
ably sure  on  any  Sunday  morning  that  in  a  book  which 
he  can  choose  from  his  shelf  he  can  read  something 
more  wisely  thought  and  more  perfectly  expressed 
than  he  will  hear  from  the  pulpit  if  he  goes  to  church. 
Why  should  he  go  ?  One  answer  to  the  question  cer- 
tainly would  be  in  the  assertion  that  preaching  is  only 
one  of  the  functions  of  the  Cliristian  Church  and  that, 
even  if  preaching  should  grow  obsolete,  there  would 
still  remain  reason  enough  why  Christians  should 
meet  together  for  worship  and  for  brotherhood.  But 
even  if  we  look  at  preaching  only,  it  must  still  be 
true  that  nothing  c^an  ever  take  its  place  because  of 
the  personal  element  that  is  in  it.  No  multiplication 
of  books  can  ever  supersede  the  human  voice.  No 
newly  opened  channel  of  approach  to  man's  mind  and 
heart  can  ever  do  away  with  man's  readiness  to  re- 
ceive impressions  through  his  fellow-man.  There  is 
no  evidence,  I  think,  in  all  the  absorption  in  books 
which  characterizes  our  much  reading  age,  of  any 
real  decline  of  the  interest  in  preaching.  Let  a  man 
be  a  true  preacher,  really  uttering  the  truth  through 
his  own  personality,  and  it  is  strange  how  men  will 
gather  to  listen  to  him.  We  hear  that  the  day  of  the 
pulpit  is  past,  and  then  some  morning  the  voice  of  a 


12  LECTURES   ON  PEE  AC  RING. 

true  preacher  is  heard  in  the  land  and  all  the  streets 
are  full  of  men  crowding  to  hear  him,  just  exactly  as 
were  the  streets  of  Constantinople  when  Chrysostom 
was  going  to  preach  at  the  Church  of  the  Apostles,  or 
the  streets  of  London  when  Latimer  was  bravely  tell- 
ing his  truth  at  St.  Paul's. 

The  same  is  true  of  reading  sermons.  I  think,  as 
I  shall  have  occasion  to  say  more  fully  in  some  other 
lecture,  that  a  sermon  that  has  the  true  sermon  qual- 
ity in  it,  when  it  is  made,  preserves  that  quality  even 
under  the  constraints  of  manuscript  or  print.  And 
books  of  sermons  which  really  bring  the  truth  through 
personality  to  men,  were  never  bought  and  read  more 
largely  than  they  are  to-day. 

No  ;  the  truth  about  this  matter  of  the  competition 
of  the  printed  book  with  the  preached  sermon,  seems 
to  be  what  is  true  of  every  competition.  It  has  led 
to  more  discrimination.  There  were  things  which 
people  went  to  hear  once  but  which  thej^  will  not  go  to 
hear  to-day.  They  can  read  better  things  of  the  same 
sort  at  home.  But  those  things  are  not  sermons. 
They  never  were  sermons.  The  competition  of  print 
has  interfered  very  much,  is  destined  to  interfere 
much  more,  —  we  may  hope  will  not  cease  to  interfere 
till  it  has  caused  it  to  disappear,  —  with  the  "pulpit 
droning  of  old  saws,"  with  the  monotonous  reitera- 
tion of  commonplaces  and  abstractions ;  but  the  true 


THE   TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.  13 

sermon,  the  utterance  of  living  truth  by  living  men, 
was  never  more  powerful  than  it  is  to-day.  People 
never  came  to  it  with  more  earnestness,  or  carried 
away  from  it  more  good  results. 

I  cannot  help  begging  you,  in  the  ministry  which 
is  before  you,  to  beware  of  excusing  your  own  failures 
by  foolish  talk  about  the  obstinate  aversion  which  the 
age  has  to  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel.  It  is  the 
meanest  and  shallowest  kind  of  excuse.  The  age  has 
no  aversion  to  preaching  as  such.  It  may  not  hsten 
to  your  preaching.  If  that  prove  to  be  the  case,  look 
for  the  fault  first  in  your  preaching,  and  not  in  the 
age.  I  wonder  at  the  eagerness  and  patience  of  con- 
gregations. I  think  that  there  are  two  things  which 
we  ministers  have  to  guard  against  in  this  matter: 
one,  the  tendency  of  which  I  have  just  spoken,  to 
blame  the  impatience  which  men  feel  with  false  pre- 
tences of  preaching,  for  the  lack  of  success  which  our 
preaching  brings ;  the  other,  an  exactly  opposite  tend- 
ency, to  trust  so  confidently  to  the  much  tried  pa- 
tience of  the  people,  that  we  shall  do  our  work  care- 
lessly from  feeling  too  secure  about  onr  power.  He 
who  escapes  both  of  these  dangers,  he  who  feels  the 
magnitude  and  privilege  of  his  work,  he  who  both 
respects  and  trusts  his  people,  neither  assuming  their 
indifference,  so  that  he  is  paralyzed,  nor  assuming  their 
interest,  so  that  he  grows  careless, — that  man,  I  think, 


14  LECTUBES   ON  PREACHING. 

need  envy  no  one  of  the  preachers  of  the  ages  that 
are  past  the  pulpit  in  which  he  stood,  or  the  congre- 
gation to  which  he  preached. 

Let  ns  look  now  for  a  few  moments  at  these  two 
elements  of  preaching — Truth  and  Personahtyj  the 
one  universal  and  invariable,  the  other  special  and 
always  different.  There  are  a  few  suggestions  that 
I  should  like  to  make  to  you  about  each. 

And  fii'st  with  regard  to  the  Truth.  It  is  strange  how 
impossible  it  is  to  separate  it  and  consider  it  wholly 
by  itself.  The  personalness  will  chng  to  it.  There 
v/'  are  two  aspects  of  the  minister's  work,  which  we  are 
constantly  meeting  in  the  New  Testament.  They  are 
really  embodied  in  two  words,  one  of  which  is  "  mes- 
sage," and  the  other  is  ''  witness."  "  This  is  the  message 
which  we  have  heard  of  Him  and  declare  unto  you," 
says  St.  John  in  his  first  Epistle.  "  We  are  His  wit- 
nesses of  these  things,"  says  St.  Peter  before  the  Coun- 
cil at  Jerusalem.  In  these  two  words  together,  I  think, 
we  have  the  fundamental  conception  of  the  matter  of 
all  Christian  preaching.  It  is  to  be  a  message  given 
to  us  for  transmission,  but  yet  a  message  which  we 
cannot  transmit  until  it  has  entered  into  our  own  ex- 
perience, and  we  can  give  our  own  testimony  of  its 
spiritual  power.  The  minister  who  keeps  the  word 
''  message  "  always  written  before  him,  as  he  prepares 
his  sermon  in  his  study,  or  utters  it  from  his  pulpit, 
is  saved  from  the  tendency  to  wanton  and  wild  specu- 


THE   TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.  15 

lation,  and  from  the  mere  passion  of  originality.  He 
who  never  forgets  that  word  "  witness/'  is  saved  from 
the  unreality  of  repeating  by  rote  mere  forms  of  state- 
ment which  he  has  learned  as  orthodox,  but  never 
reahzed  as  true.  If  you  and  I  can  always  carry  this 
double  consciousness,  that  we  are  messengers,  and 
that  we  are  witnesses,  we  shall  have  in  our  preaching 
all  the  authority  and  independence  of  assured  truth, 
and  yet  all  the  appeal  and  convincingness  of  personal 
belief.  It  will  not  be  we  that  speak,  but  the  spirit  of 
our  Father  that  speaketh  in  us,  and  yet  our  sonship 
shall  give  the  Fathei''s  voice  its  utterance  and  inter- 
pretation to  His  other  children, 

I  think  that  nothing  is  more  needed  to  correct  the 
peculiar  vices  of  preaching  which  belong  to  our  time, 
than  a  new  prevalence  among  preachers  of  this  first 
conception  of  the  truth  which  they  have  to  tell  as 
a  message.  I  am  sure  that  one  great  source  of  the 
-weakness  of  the  pulpit  is  the  feeHng  among  the  peo- 
ple that  these  men  who  stand  up  before  them  ever}^ 
Sunday  have  been  making  up  trains  of  thought,  and 
thinking  how  they  should  "  treat  their  subject,"  as  the 
phrase  runs.  There  is  the  first  ground  of  the  vicious 
liabit  that  our  congregations  have  of  talking  about 
the  preacher  more  than  they  think  about  the  truth. 
The  minstrel  who  sings  before  you  to  show  his  skill, 
will  be  praised  for  his  wit,  and  rhymes,  and  voice. 
But  the  courier  who  hurries  in,  breathless,  to  bring 


16  LECTURES   ON  PEE  ACHING. 

you  a  message,  will  be  forgotten  in  the  message  that 
he  brings.  Among  the  many  sermons  I  have  heard,  I 
always  remember  one,  for  the  wonderful  way  in  which 
it  was  pervaded  by  this  quality.  It  was  a  sermon  by 
Mr.  George  Macdonald,  the  English  author,  who  was 
in  this  country  a  few  years  ago ;  and  it  had  many  of 
the  good  and  bad  characteristics  of  his  interesting 
style.  It  had  his  brave  and  manly  honesty,  and  his 
tendency  to  sentimentality.  But  over  and  through  it 
aU  it  had  this  quality :  it  was  a  message  from  God  to 
these  people  by  hi«i.  The  man  struggled  with  lan- 
guage as  a  child  struggles  with  his  imperfectly  mas- 
tered tongue,  that  will  not  tell  the  errand  as  he  re- 
ceived it,  and  has  it  in  his  mind.  As  I  listened,  I 
seemed  to  see  how  weak  in  contrast  was  the  way  in 
which  other  preachers  had  amused  me  and  challenged 
my  admiration  for  the  working  of  their  minds.  Here 
was  a  gospel.  Here  were  real  tidings.  And  you  lis- 
tened and  forgot  the  preacher. 

Whatever  else  you  count  yourself  in  the  ministry, 
never  lose  this  fundamental  idea  of  yourself  as  a  mes- 
senger. As  to  the  way  in  which  one  shall  best  keep 
that  idea,  it  would  not  be  hard  to  state ;  but  it  would 
involve  the  whole  story  of  the  Christian  life.  Here 
is  the  primary  necessity  that  the  Christian  preacher 
should  be  a  Christian  first,  that  he  should  be  deeply 
cognizant  of  God's  authority,  and  of  the  absoluteness 
of  Christ's  truth.     That  was  one  of  the  first  principles 


TRE   TWO  ELEMENTS  TN  PEE  ACHING.  17 

which  I  ventured  to  assume  as  I  began  my  lecture. 
Bat  without  entering  so  wide  a  field,  let  me  say  one 
thing  about  this  conception  of  preaching  as  the  telling 
of  a  message  which  constantly  impresses  me.  I  think 
that  it  would  give  to  our  preaching  just  the  quality 
which  it  appears  to  me  to  most  lack  now^  That  qual- 
ity is  breadth.  I  do  not  mean  liberality  of  thought, 
not  tolerance  of  opinion,  nor  anything  of  that  kind. 
I  mean  largeness  of  movement,  the  gi'eat  utterance 
of  great  truths,  the  grea.t  enforcement  of  great  duties, 
as  distinct  from  the  minute,  and  subtle,  and  ingenious 
treatment  of  little  topics,  side  issues  of  the  soul's  life, 
bits  of  anatomy,  the  bric-a-brac  of  theology.  Take 
up,  some  Saturday,  the  list  of  subjects  on  which  the 
ministers  of  a  great  city  are  to  preach  the  next  day. 
See  how  many  of  them  seem  to  have  searched  in 
strange  corners  of  the  Bible  for  their  topics,  how 
small  and  fantastic  is  the  bit  of  truth  which  their 
hearers  are  to  have  set  before  them.  Then  turn  to  Bar- 
row, or  TiUotson,  or  Bushnell — "Of  being  imitators 
of  Christ ; "  "  That  God  is  the  only  happiness  of  man ;  " 
"  Every  man's  life  a  plan  of  God."  There  is  a  paint- 
ing of  ivory  miniatures,  and  there  is  a  painting  of 
great  frescoes.  One  kind  of  art  is  suited  to  one  kind 
of  subject,  and  another  to  another.  I  suppose  that 
all  preachers  pass  through  some  fantastic  period  when 
a  strange  text  fascinates  them ;  when  they  like  to  find 
what  can  be  said  for  an  hour  on  some  little  topic  on 


18  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

which  most  men  could  only  talk  two  minutes ;  when 
they  are  eager  for  subtlety  more  than  force,  and  for 
originality  more  than  truth.  But  as  a  preacher  grows 
more  full  of  the  conception  of  the  sermon  as  a  mes- 
sage, he  gets  clear  of  those  brambles.  He  comes  out 
on  to  open  ground.  His  work  grows  freer,  and  bolder, 
and  broader.  He  loves  the  simplest  texts,  and  the 
great  truths  which  run  like  rivers  through  all  life. 
God's  sovereignty,  Christ's  redemption,  man's  hope  in 
the  Spirit,  the  privilege  of  duty,  the  love  of  man  in 
the  Saviour,  make  the  strong  music  which  his  soul 
tries  to  catch. 

And  then  another  result  of  this  conception  of  preach- 
ing as  the  telling  of  a  message  is  that  it  puts  us  into 
right  relations  with  all  historic  Christianity.  The 
message  never  can  be  told  as  if  we  were  the  first  to 
tell  it.  It  is  the  same  message  which  the  Church  has 
told  in  all  the  ages.  He  who  tells  it  to-day  is  backed 
by  all  the  multitude  who  have  told  it  in  the  past. 
He  is  companied  by  all  those  who  are  telling  it  now. 
The  message  is  his  witness ;  but  a  part  of  the  assur- 
ance with  which  he  has  received  it,  comes  from  the 
fact  of  its  being  the  identical  message  which  has  come 
down  from  the  beginning.  Men  find  on  both  sides 
how  difficult  it  is  to  preserve  the  true  poise  and  pro- 
portion between  the  corporate  and  the  individual  con- 
ceptions of  the  Christian  life.  But  all  will  own  to-day 
the  need  of  both.     The  identity  of  the  Church  in  all 


THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.  19 

times  consists  in  the  identity  of  the  message  which 
she  has  always  had  to  carry  from  her  Lord  to  men. 
All  outward  utterances  of  the  perpetual  identity  of 
the  Church  are  valuable  only  as  they  assert  this  real 
identity.  There  is  the  real  meaning  of  the  perpetua- 
tion of  old  ceremonies,  the  use  of  ancient  liturgies, 
and  the  clinging  to  what  seem  to  be  apostolic  types 
of  government.  The  heretic  in  all  times  has  been  not 
the  errorist  as  such,  but  the  self-willed  man,  whether 
his  judgments  were  right  or  wrong.  "  A  man  may  be 
a  heretic  in  the  truth,"  says  Milton.  He  is  the  man 
who,  taking  his  ideas  not  as  a  message  from  God,  but 
as  his  own  discoveries,  has  cut  himself  off  from  the 
message-bearing  Church  of  all  the  ages.  1  am  sure 
that  the  more  fully  you  come  to  count  your  preaching 
the  telling  of  a  message,  the  more  valuable  and  real 
the  Church  will  become  to  you,  the  more  true  will 
seem  to  you  your  brotherhood  with  all  messengers  of 
that  same  message  in  all  strange  dresses  and  in  all 
strange  tongues. 

I  should  like  to  mention,  with  reference  to  the 
Truth  which  the  preacher  has  to  preach,  two  tenden- 
cies which  I  am  sure  that  you  will  recognize  as  verj^ 
characteristic  of  our  time.  One  is  the  tendency  of 
criticism,  and  the  other  is  the  tendency  of  mechanism. 
Both  tendencies  are  bad.  By  the  tendency  of  criti- 
cism I  mean  the  disposition  that  prevails  everywhere 
to  deal  with  things  from  outside,  discussing  their  re- 


20  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

lations,  examining  their  nature,  and  not  putting  our- 
selves into  their  power.  Preaching  in  every  age  fol- 
lows, to  a  certain  extent,  the  changes  which  come  to 
all  literature  and  life.  The  age  in  which  we  live  is 
strangely  fond  of  criticism.  It  takes  all  things  to 
pieces  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  examining  their  nature. 
It  studies  forces,  not  in  order  to  obey  them,  but  in  or- 
der to  understand  them.  It  talks  about  things  for  the 
pure  pleasure  of  discussion.  Much  of  the  poetry  and 
prose  about  nature  and  her  wonders,  much  of  the  in- 
vestigation of  the  country's  genius  and  institutions, 
much  of  the  subtle  analysis  of  human  nature  is  of  this 
sort.  It  is  all  good ;  but  it  is  something  distinct  from 
the  cordial  sympathy  by  which  one  becomes  a  willing 
servant  of  any  of  these  powers,  a  real  lover  of  natui'e, 
or  a  faithful  citizen,  or  a  true  friend.  Now  it  would 
be  strange  if  this  critical  tendency  did  not  take  pos- 
session of  the  preaching  of  the  day.  And  it  does. 
The  disposition  to  watch  ideas  in  their  working,  and 
to  talk  about  their  relations  and  their  influence  on 
one  another,  simply  as  problems,  in  which  the  mind 
may  find  pleasure  without  any  real  entrance  of  the 
soul  into  the  ideas  themselves,  this,  which  is  the  criti- 
cal tendency,  invades  the  pulpit,  and  the  result  is  an 
immense  amount  of  preaching  which  must  be  called 
preaching  about  Christ  as  distinct  from  preaching 
Christ.  There  are  many  preachers  who  seem  to  do 
nothing   else,   always    discussing   Christianity  as    a 


THE   TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.  21 

problem  instead  of  announcing  Christianity  as  a 
message,  and  proclaiming  Christ  as  a  Saviour.  I  do 
not  undervalue  their  discussions.  But  I  think  we 
ought  always  to  feel  that  such  discussions  are  not  the 
type  or  ideal  of  preaching.  They  may  be  necessities 
of  the  time,  but  they  are  not  the  work  which  the  great 
Apostohc  preachers  did,  or  which  the  true  preacher 
will  always  most  desire.  Definers  and  defenders  of 
the  faith  are  always  needed,  but  it  is  bad  for  a  church, 
when  its  ministers  count  it  their  true  work  to  define 
and  defend  the  faith  rather  than  to  preach  the  Gospel. 
Beware  of  the  tendency  to  preach  about  Christianity, 
and  try  to  preach  Christ.  To  discuss  the  relations 
of  Christianity  and  Science,  Christianity  and  Society, 
Christianity  and  Politics,  is  good.  To  set  Christ  forth 
to  men  so  that  they  shaU  know  Him,  and  in  gratitude 
and  love  become  His,  that  is  far  better.  It  is  good  to 
be  a  Herschel  who  describes  the  sun ;  but  it  is  better  to 
be  a  Prometheus  who  brings  the  sun's  fire  to  the  earth. 

I  called  the  other  tendency  the  tendency  of  mechan-^ 
ism.  It  is  the  disposition  of  the  preacher  to  forget 
that  the  Gospel  of  Christ  is  primarily  addressed  to  in- 
dividuals, and  that  its  ultimate  purpose  is  the  salvation^ 
of  multitudes  of  men.  Between  the  time  when  it  first 
speaks  to  a  man's  soul,  and  the  time  when  that  man's 
soul  is  gathered  into  heaven,  with  the  whole  host  of 
the  redeemed,  the  Gospel  uses  a  great  many  machin- 
eries which  are  more  or  less  impersonal.     The  Church; 


22  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

with  all  its  instrumentalities,  comes  in.  The  preacher 
works  by  them.  Bnt  if  the  preacher  ever  for  a  mo- 
ment counts  them  the  purpose  of  his  working,  if  he 
takes  his  eye  off  the  single  soul  as  the  prize  he  is  to 
win,  he  falls  from  his  highest  function  and  loses  his 
best  power.  All  successful  preaching,  I  more  and 
more  believe,  talks  to  individuals.  The  Church  is  for 
the  soul.  I  am  not  thinking  of  the  fault  or  danger  of 
any  one  body  of  Christians  alone  when  I  say  this,  not 
of  my  own  or  any  other.  The  tendency  to  work  for  the 
means  instead  of  for  the  end  is  everywhere.  And,  my 
friends,  learn  this  at  the  beginning  of  your  ministry, 
that  just  as  surely  as  you  think  that  any  kind  of  fault 
or  danger  belongs  wholly  to  another  system  than  your 
own,  and  that  you  are  not  exposed  to  it,  just  so  surely 
you  will  reproduce  that  fault  or  danger  in  some  form 
in  your  own  life.  This  surely  is  a  good  rule :  when- 
ever you  see  a  fault  in  any  other  man,  or  any  other 
church,  look  for  it  in  yourself  and  in  your  own  church. 
Where  is  the  church  which  is  not  liable  to  value  its 
machineries  above  its  purposes,  whose  ministers  are 
not  tempted  to  preach  for  the  denomination  and  its 
precious  peculiarities,  instead  of  for  men  and  for  their 
precious  souls  ?  Let  your  preaching  be  to  individuals, 
and  to  the  Church  always  as  living  for  and  made  up 
of  individuals. 

Of  the  second  element  in  preaching,  namely,  the 
piea-cher's  personality,  there  will  be  a  great  deal  to 


THE   TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.  28 

say,  especially  in  the  next  lecture.  But  there  are  two 
or  three  fundamental  things  which  I  wish  to  say  to- 
day. 

The  first  is  this,  that  the  principle  of  personality  \ 
once  admitted  involves  the  individuaUty  of  every  , 
preacher.  The  same  considerations  which  make  it 
good  that  the  Gospel  should  not  be  written  on  the  sky, 
or  committed  merely  to  an  almost  impersonal  book, 
make  it  also  most  desirable  that  every  preacher  should 
utter  the  truth  in  his  own  way,  and  according  to  his 
own  nature.  It  must  come  not  only  through  man  but 
through  men.  If  you  monotonize  men  you  lose  their 
human  power  to  a  large  degree.  If  you  could  make 
all  men  think  alike  it  would  be  very  much  as  if  no 
man  thought  at  all,  as  when  the  whole  earth  moves 
together  mth  aU  that  is  upon  it,  everj^thing  seems 
still.  Now  the  deep  sense  of  the  solemnity  of  the 
minister's  work  has  often  a  tendency  to  repress  the 
free  individuality  of  the  preacher  and  his  tolerance  of 
other  preachers'  individualities.  His  own  way  of  doing 
his  work  is  with  him  a  matter  of  conscience,  not  of 
taste,  and  the  conscience  when  it  is  thoroughly  awake 
is  more  intolerant  than  the  taste  is.  Or,  working  just 
the  other  way,  his  conscience  tells  him  that  it  is  not 
for  him  to  let  his  personal  peculiarities  intrude  in  such 
a  solemn  work,  and  so  he  tries  to  bind  himself  to  the 
ways  of  working  which  the  most  successful  preachers 
of  the  Word  have  followed.  I  have  seen  both  these 
kinds  of  ministers:   those  whose  consciences  made 


24  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

them  obstinate,  and  those  whose  consciences  made 
fchem  pliable ;  those  whose  consciences  hardened  them 
to  steel  or  softened  them  to  wax.  However  it  comes 
about,  there  is  an  unmistakable  tendency  to  the 
repression  of  the  individuality  of  the  preacher.  It  is 
seen  in  little  things :  in  the  uniform  which  preachers 
wear,  and  the  disposition  to  a  uniformity  of  language. 
It  is  seen  in  great  things :  in  the  disposition  which 
all  ages  have  witnessed  to  draw  a  line  of  orthodoxy 
inside  the  lines  of  truth.  Wisely  and  soberly  let  us 
set  ourselves  against  this  influence.  The  God  who 
sent  men  to  preach  the  Gospel  of  His  Son  in  their 
humanity,  sent  each  man  distinctively  to  preach  it 
in  his  humanity.  Be  yourself  by  all  means,  but  let 
that  good  result  come  not  by  cultivating  merely  su- 
perficial peculiarities  and  oddities.  Let  it  be  by  win- 
ning a  true  self  full  of  your  own  faith  and  your  own 
love.  The  deep  originality  is  noble,  but  the  surface 
originality  is  miserable.  It  is  so  easy  to  be  a  John 
the  Baptist,  as  far  as  the  desert  and  camel's  hair 
and  locusts  and  wild  honey  go.  But  the  devoted 
heart  to  speak  from,  and  the  fiery  words  to  speak,  are 
other  things. 

Again,  we  never  can  forget  in  thinking  of  the 
preacher's  personality  that  he  is  one  who  lives  in  con- 
stant familiarity  with  thoughts  and  words  which  to 
other  men  are  occasional  and  rare,  and  which  preserve 
their  sacredness  mainly  by  their  rarity.     That  fact 


THE   TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.  25 

must  always  come  in  when  we  try  to  estimate  the  in- 
fluences of  a  preacher's  life.  What  will  the  power  of 
that  fact  be  ?  I  am  sure  that  often  it  weakens  the 
minister.  I  am  sure  that  many  men  who,  if  they 
came  to  preach  once  in  a  great  while  in  the  midst  of 
other  occupations,  would  preach  with  reality  and  fire, 
are  deadened  to  their  sacred  work  by  their  constant 
intercourse  with  sacred  things.  Their  constant  deal- 
ing with  the  truth  makes  them  less  powerful  to  bear 
the  truth  to  others,  as  a  pipe  through  which  the  water 
always  flows  collects  its  sediment,  and  is  less  fit  to  let 
more  water  through.  And  besides  this,  it  ministers 
to  self-deception  and  to  an  exaggeration  or  distortion 
of  our  own  history.  The  man  who  constantly  talks  of 
certain  experiences,  and  urges  other  men  to  enter  into 
them,  must  come  in  time,  by  very  force  of  describing 
those  experiences,  to  think  that  he  has  undergone 
them.  You  beg  men  to  repent,  and  you  grow  so 
familiar  with  the  whole  theory  of  repentance  that  it 
is  hard  for  you  to  know  that  you  yourself  have  not 
repented.  You  exhort  to  patience  till  you  have  no 
eyes  or  ears  for  your  own  impatience.  It  is  the  way 
in  which  the  man  who  starts  the  trains  at  the  raili'oad 
station  must  come  in  time  to  feel  as  if  he  himself  had 
been  to  all  the  towns  along  the  road  whose  names  he 
has  always  been  shouting  in  the  passengers'  ears,  and 
to  which  he  has  for  years  sold  them  their  tickets,  when 
perhaps  he  has  not  left  his  own  little  way-station  all 


26  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

the  time.  I  know  that  all  this  is  so,  and  yet  certainly 
the  fault  is  in  the  man,  not  in  the  truth.  The  remedy 
certainly  is  not  to  make  the  truth  less  f  amihar.  There 
is  a  truer  relation  to  preaching,  in  which  the  constancy 
of  it  shall  help  instead  of  harming  the  reality  and 
earnestness  with  which  you  do  it.  The  more  that  you 
urge  other  people  to  holiness  the  more  intense  may  be 
the  hungering  and  thirsting  after  holiness  in  your 
own  heart.  Familiarity  does  not  breed  contempt  ex- 
cept of  contemptible  things  or  in  contemptible  people. 
The  adage,  that  no  man  is  a  hero  to  his  valet  de 
chamhre,  is  sufficiently  answered  b}^  saying  that  it  is 
only  to  a  valet  de  chamhre  that  a  truly  great  man  is 
unheroic.  You  must  get  the  impulse,  the  delight, 
and  the  growing  sacredness  of  your  life  out  of  your 
familiar  work.  You  are  lost  as  a  preacher  if  its  fa- 
miliarity deadens  and  encrusts,  instead  of  vitalizing 
and  opening  your  powers.  And  it  will  all  depend 
upon  whether  you  do  your  work  for  your  Master  and 
His  people  or  for  yourself.  The  last  kind  of  labor 
slowly  kills,  the  first  gives  life  more  and  more. 

The  real  preparation  of  the  preacher's  personality 
for  its  transmissive  work  comes  by  the  opening  of 
his  life  on  both  sides,  towards  the  truth  of  God  and 
towards  the  needs  of  man.  To  apprehend  in  all  theit* 
intensity  the  wants  and  woes  of  men,  to  see  the  prob- 
lems and  dangers  of  this  life,  then  to  know  all  through 
us  that  nothing  but  Christ  and  His  Redemption  can 


THE   TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.  27 

thoroughly  satisfy  these  wants,  that  is  what  makes  a,^^ 
man  a  preacher.  Alas  for  him  who  is  only  open  on 
the  manward  side,  who  only  knows  how  mis,erable 
and  wicked  man  is,  but  has  no  power  of  God  to  bring 
to  him.  He  lays  a  kind  but  helpless  hand  upon  the 
wound.  He  tries  to  relieve  it  with  his  sympathy  and 
his  philosophy.  He  is  the  source  of  all  he  says.  There 
is  no  God  behind  him.  He  is  no  preacher.  The 
preacher's  instinct  is  that  which  feels  instantly  how 
Christ  and  human  need  belong  together,  neither  thinks 
Christ  too  far  off  for  the  need,  nor  the  need  too  in- 
significant for  Christ.  Never  be  afraid  to  bring  the 
transcendent  mysteries  of  our  faith,  Christ's  life  and 
death  and  resurrection,  to  the  help  of  the  humblest 
and  commonest  of  human  wants.  There  is  a  sort  of 
preaching  which  keeps  them  for  the  great  emergen- 
cies, and  soothes  the  common  sorrows  and  rebukes 
the  common  sins  with  lower  considerations  of  econ- 
omy. Such  preaching  fails.  It  neither  appeals  to  the 
lower  nor  to  the  higher  perceptions  of  mankind.  It 
is  useful  neither  as  a  law  nor  as  a  gospel.  It  is  like 
a  river  that  is  frozen  too  hard  to  be  navigable  but  not 
hard  enough  to  bear.  Never  fear,  as  you  preach,  to 
bring  the  sublimest  motive  to  the  smallest  duty,  and 
the  most  infinite  comfort  to  the  smallest  trouble. 
They  will  prove  that  they  belong  there  if  only  the 
duty  and  trouble  are  real  and  you  have  read  them 
thoroughly  aright. 


28  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

These  are  the  elements  of  preaching,  then,  —  Truth 
and  Personality.  The  truth  is  in  itself  a  fi_xed  and 
stable  element ;  the  personality  is  a  varying  and  grow- 
ing element.  In  the  union  of  the  two  we  have  the 
provision  for  the  combination  of  identity  with  variety, 
of  stability  with  growth,  in  the  preaching  of  the  Gos- 
pel. The  truth  which  you  are  preaching  is  the  same 
which  your  brother  is  preaching  in  the  next  pulpit,  or 
in  some  missionary  station  on  the  other  side  of  the 
globe.  If  it  were  not,  you  would  get  no  strength  from 
one  another.  You  would  not  stand  back  to  back 
against  the  enemy,  sustaining  one  another,  as  you  do 
now.  But  the  way  in  which  you  preach  the  truth  is 
different,  and  each  of  you  reaches  some  ears  that 
would  be  deaf  to  the  most  persuasive  tones  of  the 
other.  The  Gospel  you  are  preacliing  now  is  the  same 
Gospel  that  you  preached  when  you  were  fii'st  or- 
dained, in  that  first  sermon  which  it  was  at  once  such 
a  terror  and  such  a  joy  to  preach ;  but  if  you  have 
been  a  live  man  aU  the  time,  you  are  not  preaching  it 
now  as  you  did  then.  If  the  truth  had  changed,  your 
life  would -have  lost  its  unity.  The  truth  has  not 
changed,  but  you  have  grown  to  fuller  understanding 
of  it,  to  larger  capacity  of  receiving  and  transmitting 
it.  There  is  no  pleasure  in  the  minister's  life  stronger 
than  this, — the  perception  of  identity  and  progress  in 
Ms  preaching  of  the  truth  as  he  grows  older.     It  is 


THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.  29 

like  a  man's  pleasure  in  watcliing  the  growth  of  his 
own  body  or  his  own  mind,  or  of  a  tree  which  he  has 
planted.  Always  the  same  it  is,  yet  always  larger. 
It  is  a  common  experience  of  ministers,  I  suppose,  to 
find  that  sentences  in  their  old  sermons  which  were 
wi'itten  years  ago  contain  meanings  and  views  of  truth 
which  they  hold  now  but  which  they  never  had  thought 
of  in  those  early  days.  The  truth  was  there,  but  the 
man  had  not  appropriated  it.  The  truth  has  not 
changed,  but  the  man  is  more  sufficient  for  it.  Here  is 
the  power  by  which  the  truth  becomes  related  to  each 
special  age.  It  is  brought  to  it  through  the  men  of 
the  age.  If  a  preacher  is  not  a  man  of  his  age,  in  sym- 
pathy with  its  spirit,  his  preaching  fails.  He  wonders 
that  the  truth  has  grown  so  powerless.  But  ifc  is  not 
the  truth  that  has  failed.  It  is  the  other  element,  the 
person.  That  is  the  reason  why  sometimes  the  old 
preacher  finds  his  weU-known  power  gone,  and  com- 
plains that  while  he  is  stiU  in  his  vigor  people  are 
looking  to  younger  men  for  the  work  which  they  once 
dehghted  to  demand  of  him.  There  are  noble  ex- 
amples on  the  other  side :  old  men  with  a  personaUty 
as  vitally  sympathetic  with  the  changing  age  as  the 
truth  which  they  preach  is  true  to  the  Word  of  God. 
They  have  a  power  which  no  young  man  can  begin  to 
wield,  and  the  world  owns  it  willingly.  People  would 
rather  see  old  men  than  young  men  in  their  pulpits,  if 


30  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

only  the  old  men  bring  them  both  elements  of  preach- 
ingj  a  faith  that  is  eternally  true,  and  a  person  that  is 
in  quick  and  ready  sympathy  with  their  present  life. 
If  they  can  have  but  one,  they  are  apt  to  choose  the 
latter  5  but  what  they  really  want  is  both,  and  the 
noblest  ministries  in  the  Church  are  those  of  old  men 
who  have  kept  the  freshness  of  their  youth. 

It  is  in  the  poise  and  proportion  of  these  two  ele- 
ments of  preaching  that  we  secure  the  true  relation 
between  independence  and  adaptation  in  the  preacher's 
character.  The  desire  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  people 
to  whom  we  preach  may  easily  become  servility.  Many 
a  man  has  lost  his  manliness  and  won  people's  con- 
tempt in  a  truly  earnest  desire  to  win  their  hearts  for 
his  great  message.  Here  is  where  the  stable  and  un- 
changing element  of  our  work  comes  in.  There  is 
something  that  you  owe  to  the  truth  and  to  yourself 
as  its  preacher.  There  is  a  hue  beyond  which  adapta- 
tion becomes  feebleness.  There  are  some  things  which 
St.  Paul  will  not  become  to  any  man.  Nothing  but 
this  sense  of  the  unchanging  demands  of  the  truth 
which  we  are  sent  to  preach  can  keep  us  from  giving 
our  people  what  they  want,  instead  of  what  they  need. 
Keep  a  clear  sense  of  what  your  truth  requires  of  you. 
Count  it  unworthy  of  yourself  as  a  minister  of  the  Gos- 
pel to  comfort  any  sorrow  with  less  than  the  Gospel's 
whole  comfortableness,  or  to  bid  any  soul  be  perfectly 


TBE   TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.  ol 

happy  in  anything  less  than  the  highest  spiritual  joy. 
The  saddest  moments  in  every  preachei-^s  life,  I  think, 
are  those  in  which  he  goes  away  from  his  pulpit  con- 
scious that  he  has  given  the  people,  not  the  highest  that 
he  knew  how  to  give,  but  only  the  highest  that  they 
knew  how  to  ask.  He  has  satisfied  them,  and  he  is 
thoroughly  discontented  with  himself.  When  a  friend 
of  Alexander  the  Great  had  asked  of  him  ten  talents, 
he  tendered  to  him  fifty,  and  when  reply  was  made 
that  ten  were  sufficient,  "  True,"  said  he,  "  ten  are  suf- 
ficient for  you  to  take,  but  not  for  me  to  give." 

If  it  is  the  decay  of  the  personal  element  that  weakens 
the  ministry  of  some  old  men,  I  think  it  is  the  slight- 
ing of  the  element  of  absolute  truth  that  degrades  the 
work  of  preaching  in  many  young  men's  eyes,  and 
keeps  such  numbers  of  them,  who  ought  to  be  there, 
from  its  sacred  duties.  The  prevalence  of  doubt 
about  all  truth,  and  to  some  extent  also  the  general 
eagerness  of  preachers  to  find  out  and  meet  the  people's 
desires  and  demands,  these  two  causes  together  have 
created  the  impression  that  the  ministry  had  no  cer- 
tain purposes  or  definite  message,  that  the  preacher 
was  a  promiscuous  caterer  for  men's  whims,  wishing 
them  well,  inspired  by  a  certain  general  benevolence, 
but  in  no  sense  a  prophet  uttering  positive  truth  to 
them  which  they  did  not  know  before,  uttering  it 
whether  they  liked  it  or  hated  it.     Is  not  that  the  im- 


32  LECTURES   ON  PBEACRING. 

pression  which  many  young  men  have  of  the  ministry  ? 
Is  it  not  natural  that  with  that  impression  they  should 
seek  some  other  way  to  help  their  fellow-men  ?  And 
is  there  not  very  much  indeed  in  the  way  in  which 
preachers  do  their  work  to  give  such  an  impres- 
sion ?  Everywhere,  for  the  strengthening  of  the  weak 
preacher,  the  enlivening  of  the  dull  preacher,  the  so- 
bering of  the  flippant  preacher,  the  freshening  of  the 
old  preacher,  the  maturing  of  the  young  preacher, 
what  we  need  is  the  just  poise  and  proportion  of  these 
two  elements  of  the  preacher's  work,  the  truth  he  has 
to  tell  and  the  personality  through  which  he  has  to 
tell  it. 

The  purpose  of  preaching  must  always  be  the  first 
condition  that  decrees  its  character.  The  final  cause 
is  that  which  really  shapes  everything's  life.  And 
what  is  preaching  for"?  The  answer  comes  without 
hesitation.  It  is  for  men's  salvation.  But  the  idea 
of  what  salvation  is  has  never  been  entirely  uniform 
or  certain  5  and  all  through  the  history  of  preaching 
we  can  see  that  the  character  of  preaching  varied 
continually,  rose  or  fell,  enlarged  or  narrowed,  with 
the  constant  variation  of  men's  ideas  as  to  what  it 
was  to  be  saved.  If  salvation  was  something  here 
and  now,  preaching  became  a  direct  appeal  to  man's 
present  life.     If  salvation  was  something  future  and 


THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.  33 

far  away,  preaching  died  into  remote  whispers  and 
only  made  itself  graphic  and  forcible  by  the  vivid 
pictures  of  torture  addressed  to  the  senses  whose  pain 
men  most  easily  understand.  If  to  be  saved  was  to 
be  saved  from  sin,  preaching  became  spiritual.  If  to 
be  saved  was  to  be  saved  from  punishment,  preaching 
became  forensic  and  economical.  If  salvation  was  the 
elevation  of  society,  preaching  became  a  lecture  upon 
social  science.  The  first  thing  for  you  to  do  is  to  see 
clearly  what  you  are  going  to  preach  for,  what  you 
mean  to  try  to  save  men  from.  By  your  con\'iction 
about  that,  the  whole  quality  of  your  ministry  will  be 
decided.  To  the  absence  of  any  clear  answer  to  that 
question,  to  the  entii'e  vagueness  as  to  what  men's 
danger  is,  we  owe  the  vagueness  with  which  so  many 
of  our  preachers  preach. 

The  world  has  not  heard  its  best  preaching  yet.  If 
there  is  more  of  God's  truth  for  men  to  know,  and  if 
it  is  possible  for  the  men  who  utter  it  to  become  more 
pure  and  godly,  then,  with  both  of  its  elements  more 
complete  than  they  have  ever  been  before,  preaching 
must  some  day  be  a  completer  power.  But  that  better 
preaching  will  not  come  by  any  sudden  leap  of  inspi- 
ration. As  the  preaching  of  the  present  came  from 
the  preaching  of  the  past,  so  the  preaching  that  is  to 
be  will  come  from  the  preaching  that  is  now.     If  we 


34  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

preach  as  honestly,  as  intelligently,  and  as  spiritually 
as  we  can,  we  shall  not  merely  do  good  in  our  own 
day,  but  help  in  some  real  though  unrecorded  way  the 
future  triumphs  of  the  work  we  love. 


THE  PREACHER  HIMSELF. 


"]% /TY  last  lecture  indicated  very  clearly  the  impor- 
■^^  tance  which  I  think  belongs  to  the  preacher's 
person  in  the  work  to  which  he  is  ordained.  In  my 
second  and  third  lectures  I  want  to  dwell  upon  this 
subject  and  consider  distinctively  the  preacher.  After 
that  we  will  look  at  the  sermon.  And  in  considering 
the  preacher,  we  may  think  of  him  first  in  himself  and 
then  in  relation  to  his  work.  It  is  not  a  distinction 
that  can  be  accurately  and  constantly  maintained. 
The  two  views  run  together.  But  it  will  help  me  in 
making  an  arrangement  of  what  I  have  to  say ;  and 
if  we  do  not  insist  on  it  too  strongly,  it  will  aid  our 
thoughts.  To-day  I  take  the  first  of  these  two  topics, 
and  shall  speak  of  the  preacher's  personal  character, 
the  preacher  in  himself. 

Let  us  ask,  then,  first,  What  sort  of  man  may  be  a 
minister  ?  It  would  be  good  for  the  Church  if  it  were 
a  more  common  question.  Partly  because  the  motives 
which  lead  a  young  man  to  the  ministry  are  so  per- 

35 


36  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

sonal  and  spiritual,  partly  because  of  our  sense  of  the 
magnitude  and  privilege  of  the  work,  which  makes  us 
fear  to  be  the  means  of  excluding  any  worthy  man 
from  it,  partly  because,  at  present,  while  the  harvest 
is  so  plenteous  the  laborers  are  so  very  few, — for  these 
and  other  reasons,  there  is  far  too  little  discrimination 
in  the  selection  of  men  who  are  to  preach,  and  many 
men  find  their  way  into  the  preacher's  office  who  dis- 
cover only  too  late  that  it  is  not  their  place.  When 
our  Lord  selected  those  to  whom  He  was  to  commit 
His  gospel,  we  are  impressed  with  the  deliberation 
and  solemnity  of  the  act :  "  And  it  came  to  pass  in 
those  days  that  He  went  out  into  a  mountain  to  pray, 
and  continued  all  night  in  prayer  to  God.  And  when 
it  was  day.  He  called  unto  Him  His  disciples,  and  of 
them  He  chose  twelve,  whom  also  He  named  apostles." 
There  has  certainly  grown  up  in  the  Church  a  strong 
misgiving  as  to  the  whole  policy  of  charitable  people 
and  benevolent  societies  who,  with  their  lavish  offers  of 
help,  gather  into  the  ministry,  along  with  many  noble, 
faithful  men,  a  multitude  who,  amiable  and  pious  as 
they  may  be,  are  of  the  kind  who  make  no  place  in 
life  for  themselves,  but  wait  till  some  one  kindly  makes 
one  for  them  and  drops  them  into  it.  I  am  convinced 
that  the  ministry  can  never  have  its  true  dignity  or 
power  till  it  is  cut  aloof  from  mendicancy, — till  young 
men  whose  hearts  are  set  on  preaching  make  theii*  way 
to  the  pulpit  by  the  same  energy  and  through  the  same 


THE  PBEACHER  HIMSELF.  37 

difficulties  which  meet  countless  young  men  on  their 
way  to  business  and  the  bar.  We  believe  the  influ- 
ence which  brings  men  to  the  pulpit  to  be  a  far  holier 
one.  It  ought,  then,  to  be  a  far  stronger  one ;  and 
yet  we  trust  less  to  its  power  than  we  do  to  the  power 
of  ambition  and  self-interest.  It  is  a  part  of  the  whole 
unmanly  way  of  treating  ministers,  of  which  there 
will  be  more  to  say. 

It  is  not  easy  to  describe,  with  our  large  views  of 
personal  liberty  and  personal  rights,  what  methods  of 
inspection  and  authentication  it  may  be  well  to  use  on 
the  admission  of  preachers  to  their  sacred  work ;  but 
what  we  most  of  all  need  is  a  clearer  understanding 
an.d  a  fuller  statement  of  what  are  the  true  conditions 
of  a  minister's  success,  and  so  what  qualities  we  have 
a  right  to  ask  of  ourselves  and  of  one  another  before 
we  can  feel  that  the  true  call  to  the  ministry  has  been  / 
established.  We  must  not  draw  the  Line  too  nar- 
rowly. There  is  nothing  more  striking  about  the 
ministry  than  the  way  in  which  very  opposite  men 
do  equally  effective  work.  You  look  at  some  great 
preacher,  and  you  say,  "  There  is  the  type.  He  who 
is  like  that  can  preach,"  and  just  as  your  snug  con- 
clusion is  all  made,  some  other  voice  rings  out  from 
a  neighboring  pulpit,  and  the  same  power  of  God 
reaches  the  hearts  of  men  in  a  totally  new  way, 
and  your  neat  conclusion  cracks  and  breaks.  Spur- 
geon  preaches  at  his  Sun*ey  Tabernacle,  and  Liddon 


38  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

preaches  at  St.  Paul's,  and  both  are  great  preachers, 
and  yet  no  two  men  could  be  more  entii'ely  unlike. 
It  must  be  so.  If  the  preacher  is  after  all  only  the 
representative  man,  the  representative  Christian  do- 
ing in  special  ways  and  with  a  special  ordination  that 
which  all  men  ought  to  be  doing  for  Christ  and  fel- 
low-man, then  there  ought  to  be  as  many  kinds  of 
preachers  as  there  are  kinds  of  Christians ;  and  there 
are  as  many  kinds  of  Christians  as  there  are  kinds  of 
men. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  only  in  the  largest  way  can 
the  necessary  qualities  of  the  preacher  be  enumerated. 
With  this  provision  such  an  enumeration  may  be  at- 
tempted. 
j  I  must  not  dwell  upon  the  first  of  aU  the  necessary 
/  qualities,  and  yet  there  is  not  a  moment's  doubt  that 
'  it  does  stand  first  of  all.  It  is  personal  piety,  a  deep 
possession  in  one's  own  soul  of  the  faith  and  hope  and 
resolution  which  he  is  to  oifer  to  his  fellow-men  for 
their  new  life.  Nothing  but  fire  kindles  fire.  To 
know  in  one's  whole  nature  what  it  is  to  live  by 
Christ;  to  be  His,  not  our  own;  to  be  so  occupied 
with  gratitude  for  what  He  did  for  us  and  for  what 
He  continually  is  to  us  that  His  wiU  and  His  glory 
shall  be  the  sole  desires  of  our  life,  I  wish  that  I  could 
put  in  some  words  of  new  and  overwhelming  force 
the  old  accepted  certainty  that  that  is  the  fii'st  neces- 
sity of  the  preacher,  that  to  preach  without  that  is 


THE  PREACHER  HIMSELF.  39 

weary  and  unsatisfpng  and  unprofitable  work,  that 
to  preach  with  that  is  a  perpetual  privilege  and 
joy. 

And  next  to  this  I  mention  what  we  may  call  men- 
tal and  spiritual  unselfishness.  I  do  not  speak  so 
much  of  a  moral  as  of  an  intellectual  quality.  I 
mean  that  kind  of  mind  which  always  conceives  of 
truth  with  reference  to  its  communication  and  re- 
ceives any  spiritual  blessing  as  a  trust  for  others. 
Both  of  these  are  capable  of  being  cultivated,  but  I 
hold  that  there  is  a  natural  difference  between  men 
in  this  respect.  Some  men  by  nature  receive  truth 
abstractly.  They  follow  it  into  its  developments. 
They  fathom  its  depths.  But  they  never  think  of 
sending  it  abroad.  They  are  so  enwrapt  in  seeing 
what  it  is  that  they  never  care  to  test  what  it  can  do. 
Other  men  necessarily  think  in  relation  to  other  men, 
and  their  first  impulse  with  every  new  truth  is  to  give 
it  its  full  range  of  power.  Their  love  for  truth  is  al- 
ways complemented  by  a  love  for  man.  They  are  two 
clearly  different  temperaments.  One  of  them  does 
not  and  the  other  does  make  the  preacher. 

Again,  hopefulness  is  a  necessary  quality  of  the 
true  preacher's  nature.  You  know  how  out  of  every 
complicated  condition  of  affairs  one  man  naturally 
appropriates  all  the  elements  of  hope,  while  another 
invariably  gathers  up  all  that  tends  to  despair.  The 
latter  kind  of  man  may  have  his  uses.     There  are 


40  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

tasks  and  times  for  which  no  prophet  but  Cassandra 
is  appropriate.  There  were  duties  laid  on  some  of 
the  old  Hebrew  prophets  which  perhaps  thej^  might 
have  done  with  hearts  wholly  destitute  of  any  ray  of 
light.  But  such  a  temper  is  entirely  out  of  keep- 
ing with  the  Christian  gospel.  The  preacher  may 
sometimes  denounce,  rebuke,  and  terrify.  When  he 
does  that,  he  is  not  distinctively  the  preacher  of  Chris- 
tianity. If  his  nature  is  such  that  he  must  dread 
and  fear  continually,  he  was  not  made  to  preach  the 
gospel. 

If  I  go  on  and  mention  a  certain  physical  condition 
as  essential  to  the  preacher,  I  do  so  on  ver}^  serious 
grounds.  I  am  impressed  with  what  seems  to  me  the 
frivolous  and  insufficient  way  in  which  the  health  of 
the  preacher  is  often  treated.  It  is  not  simply  that 
the  sick  minister  is  always  hampered  and  restrained. 
It  is  not  merely  that  the  truth  he  has  within  him  finds 
imperfect  utterance.  It  is  that  the  preacher's  work  is 
the  most  largely  human  of  all  occupations.  It  brings 
a  man  into  more  multiplied  relations  with  his  fellow- 
man  than  any  other  work.  It  is  not  the  doing  of  cer- 
tain specified  duties.  You  will  be  sadly  mistaken  if 
you  think  it  is,  and  try  to  set  down  in  your  contract 
with  3^our  parish  just  what  you  are  to  do,  and  where 
your  duties  are  to  stop.  It  is  the  man  offered  as  a 
medium  through  whom  God's  influence  may  reach  his 
fellow-men.     Such   an   offering   involves  the   whole 


THE  PREACHER  HIMSELF.  41 

man,  and  the  whole  man  is  body  and  soul  together. 
Therefore  the  ideal  preacher  brinj''s  the  perfectly 
healthy  body  with  the  perfectly  sound  soul.  Remem- 
ber that  the  care  for  your  health,  the  avoidance  of 
nervous  waste,  the  training  of  your  voice,  and  every- 
thing else  that  you  do  for  your  body  is  not  merely  an 
economy  of  your  organs  that  they  may  be  fit  for  cer- 
tain works ;  it  is  a  part  of  that  total  self -consecration 
which  cannot  be  divided,  and  which  all  together  makes 
you  the  medium  through  which  God  may  reach  His 
childi-en's  lives.  I  cannot  but  think  that  so  high  a 
view  of  the  consecration  of  the  body  would  convict 
many  of  the  reputable  sins  against  health  in  which 
ministers  are  apt  to  live,  and  do  the  fundamental 
good  which  the  tinkering  of  the  body  by  specifics  for 
special  occasions  so  completely  fails  to  do. 

I  speak  of  only  one  thing  more.  I  do  not  know 
how  to  give  it  a  name,  but  I  do  think  that  in  every 
man  who  preaches  there  should  be  something  of  that 
quality  which  we  recognize  in  a  high  degree  in  some 
man  of  whom  we  say,  when  we  see  him  in  the  pulpit, 
that  he  is  a  "  born  preacher."  Call  it  enthusiasm ; 
call  it  eloquence ;  call  it  magnetism ;  call  it  the  gift 
for  preaching.  It  is  the  quality  that  kindles  at  the 
sight  of  men,  that  feels  a  keen  joy  at  the  meeting  of 
truth  and  the  human  mind,  and  recognizes  how  God 
made  them  for  each  other.  It  is  the  power  by  which 
a  man  loses  himself  and  becomes  but  the  sympathetic 


42  LllCTUEES  ON  PREACHING. 

atmosphere  bet"^7een  the  truth  on  one  side  of  him  and 
the  man  on  the  other  side  of  him.  It  is  the  inspira- 
tion, the  possession, — what  I  have  heard  called  the 
'^ demon"  of  preaching.  Something  of  this  quality 
there  must  be  in  every  man  who  really  preaches.  He 
who  wholly  lacks  it  cannot  be  a  preacher. 

AU  of  these  qualities  which  I  have  thus  enumerated 
exist  in  degrees.  All  of  them  are  capable  of  culture 
if  they  exist  at  all.  All  of  them  are  difficult  to  test  ex- 
cept by  the  actual  work  of  preaching.  I  grant,  there- 
fore, fully,  that  it  is  difficult  to  draw  out  of  them  a  set 
of  tests  which  the  secretary  of  an  education  society 
can  apply  to  candidates,  —  as  a  recruiting  sergeant 
measures  volunteers  around  the  chest, — and  mark 
them  as  fit  or  unfit  for  the  ministry.  But  from  their 
enumeration  I  think  still  that  there  does  rise  up  be- 
fore us  a  clear  picture  of  the  man  who  ought  to  be  a 
preacher.  Full  of  the  love  of  Christ,  taking  aU  truth 
and  blessing  as  a  trust,  in  the  best  sense  didactic, 
hopeful,  healthy,  and  counting  health,  as  far  as  it  is 
in  his  power,  a  part  of  his  self-consecration ;  willing, 
not  simply  as  so  many  men  are,  to  bear  sickness  for 
God's  work,  but  willing  to  preserve  health  for  God's 
work ;  and  going  to  his  preaching  with  the  enthusiasm 
that  shows  it  is  what  God  made  him  for.  The  nearer 
you  can  come  to  him,  my  friends,  the  better  preachers 
you  will  be,  the  surer  you  may  be  that  you  have  a  right 
to  be  preachers  at  all. 


THE  PBEACHEB  HIMSELF.  43 

And  the  next  question  will  be,  When  you  have  the 
right  kind  of  man  to  make  a  preacher  of,  what  are 
the  changes  you  will  want  him  to  undergo  that„he  ( 
may  become  a  preacher?  The  formal  ordination 
which  he  will  meet  by  and  by  will  be  nothing,  of  ' 
course,  unless  it  signifies  some  real  experiences  which 
have  filled  these  years  since  his  soul  heard  what  it 
recognized  as  God's  call  to  the  ministry.  We  may 
set  him  apart  from  other  men  with  what  solemn  cere- 
monies we  may  please,  but  he  will  be  just  like  other 
men  still,  unless  the  power  of  the  work  to  which  he 
looks  forward  has  entered  into  him  during  his  careful 
preparation  and  made  him  different. 

What  does  this  difference  consist  in  ?  What  is  the 
true  preparation  ?  First,  and  most  evident,  there  are 
his  special  studies  which  have  been  filling  him  with 
their  spirit.  Most  men  begin  really  to  study  when  they 
enter  on  the  preparation  for  their  professions.  Men 
whose  college  life,  with  its  general  culture,  has  been 
very  idle,  begin  to  work  when  at  the  door  of  the  pro- 
fessional school  the  work  of  their  life  comes  into  sight 
before  them.  It  is  the  way  in  which  a  bird  who  has 
been  wheehng  vaguely  hither  and  thither  sees  at  last 
its  home  in  the  distance  and  flies  towards  it  like 
an  arrow.  But  shall  I  say  to  you  how  often  I  have 
thought  that  the  very  transcendent  motives  of  the 
young  minister's  study  have  a  certain  tendency  to  be- 
wilder him  and  make  his  study  less  faithful  than  that 


44  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

of  men  seeking  other  professions  from  lower  motives  ? 
The  highest  motive  often  dazzles  before  it  illuminates. 
It  is  one  of  the  ways  in  which  the  light  within  us  be- 
comes darkness.  I  never  shall  forget  my  first  experi- 
ence of  a  divinity  school.  I  had  come  from  a  college 
where  men  studied  hard  but  said  nothing  about  faith. 
I  had  never  been  at  a  prayer-meeting  in  my  life.  The 
first  place  I  was  taken  to  at  the  seminary  was  the 
prayer-meeting ;  and  never  shall  I  lose  the  impression 
of  the  devoutness  with  which  those  men  prayed  and 
exhorted  one  another.  Their  whole  souls  seemed  ex- 
alted and  their  natures  were  on  fire.  I  sat  bewil- 
dered and  ashamed,  and  went  away  depressed.  On 
the  next  day  I  met  some  of  those  same  men  at  a  Greek 
recitation.  It  would  be  little  to  say  of  some  of  the 
devoutest  of  them  that  they  had  not  learnt  their  les- 
sons. Their  whole  way  showed  that  they  never  learnt 
their  lessons ;  that  they  had  not  got  hold  of  the  first 
principles  of  hard,  faithful,  conscientious  study.  The 
boiler  had  no  connection  with  the  engine.  The  devo- 
tion did  not  touch  the  work  which  then  and  there 
was  the  work  and  the  only  work  for  them  to  do.  By 
and  by  I  found  something  of  where  the  steam  did 
escape  to.  A  sort  of  amateur,  premature  preaching 
was  much  in  vogue  among  us.  We  were  in  haste  to 
be  at  what  we  called  "  our  work."  A  feeble  twilight 
of  the  coming  ministry  we  lived  in.     The  people  in 


THE  PREACHER  HIMSELF.  45 

the  neighborhood  dubbed  us  '^parsonnettes."  Oh, 
my  fellow-students,  the  special  study  of  theology  and 
all  that  appertains  to  it,  that  is  what  the  preacher 
must  be  doing  always ;  but  he  never  can  do  it  after- 
wards as  he  can  in  the  blessed  days  of  quiet  in  Arabia, 
after  Christ  has  called  him,  and  before  the  Apostles 
lay  their  hands  upon  him.  In  many  respects  an  igno- 
rant clergy,  however  pious  it  may  be,  is  worse  than 
none  at  all.  The  more  the  empty  head  glows  and 
burns,  the  more  hollow  and  thin  and  dry  it  grows. 
"  The  knowledge  of  the  priest,"  said  St.  Francis  de 
Sales,  "  is  the  eighth  sacrament  of  the  Church." 

But  again,  the  minister's  preparation  of  character 
for  his  work  involves  something  more  intimate  than 
the  accumulation  of  knowledge.  The  knowledge 
which  comes  into  him  meets  in  him  the  intention  of 
preaching,  and,  touched  by  that,  undergoes  a  trans- 
formation. It  is  changed  into  doctrine.  Doctrine 
means  this, — truth  considered  with  reference  to  its 
being  taught.  The  reason  why  many  men  dislike  the 
word  "  doctrine  "  is  from  their  disHke  of  the  whole 
notion  of  docility  which  is  attached  to  it.  Just  as  a 
citizen  who  is  preparing  himself  for  public  ofBce  con- 
siders the  law  and  character  of  the  State  not  ab- 
stractly, but  with  reference  to  their  application  to  the 
people  whom  he  aspires  to  govern ;  just  as  the  student 
in  a  normal  school  learns  everything  with  an  under- 


46  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

consciousness  that  he  is  going  to  teach  that  same  thing 
some  day,  influencing  all  the  methods  of  his  learning  j 
so  the  student  preparing  to  be  a  preacher  cannot  learn 
truth  as  the  mere  student  of  theology  for  its  own  sake 
might  do.  He  always  feels  it  reaching  out  through 
him  to  the  people  to  whom  he  is  some  day  to  carry  it. 
He  cannot  get  rid  of  this  consciousness.  It  influences 
all  his  understanding.  We  can  see  that  it  must  have 
its  dangers.  It  will  threaten  the  impartiality  with 
which  he  will  seek  truth.  It  will  tempt  him  to  prefer 
those  forms  of  truth  which  most  easily  lend  them- 
selves to  didactic  uses,  rather  than  those  which  bring 
evidence  of  being  most  simply  and  purely  true.  That 
is  the  danger  of  all  preachers.  Against  that  danger 
the  man  meaning  to  be  a  preacher  must  be  upon  his 
guard,  but  he  cannot  avoid  the  danger  by  sacrificing 
the  habit  out  of  which  the  danger  springs.  He  must 
receive  truth  as  one  who  is  to  teach  it.  He  cannot,  he 
must  not  study  as  if  the  truth  he  sought  were  purely 
for  his  own  culture  or  enrichment.  And  the  result 
of  such  a  habit,  followed  with  due  guard  against  its 
dangerous  tendencies,  will  be  threefold.  It  will  bring, 
first,  a  deeper  and  more  solemn  sense  of  responsibility 
in  the  search  of  truth;  second,  a  desire  to  find  the 
human  side  of  every  truth,  the  point  at  which  every 
speculation  touches  humanity ;  and  third,  a  breadth 
which  comes  from  the  constant  presence  in  the  mind 
of  the  fact  that  truth  has  various  aspects  and  presents 


THE   PEE  AC  HER  HIMSELF.  47 

itself  in  many  ways  to  different  people,  according  to 
their  needs  and  characters. 

Along  with  this  preparation  for  preaching  goes  an- 
other. I  said  the  man  who  studied  with  the  intention 
of  teaching  learned  to  see  and  seize  the  human  side 
of  all  divinity.  It  is  true,  also,  that  he  learns  to  seize 
the  divine  side  of  all  humanity.  The  sources  from 
which  liis  preaching  is  to  be  fed  open  on  every  side  of 
him.  I  can  remember  how,  as  I  looked  forward  to 
preaching,  every  book  I  read  and  every  man  I  talked 
with  seemed  to  teem  with  sermons.  They  all  sug- 
gested something  which  it  seemed  as  if  the  preacher 
of  the  gospel  ought  to  say  to  men.  I  have  not  found 
the  sermons  in  them  all  as  I  went  on  j  not,  I  believe, 
because  I  was  mistaken  in  thinking  they  were  there, 
but  -because  I  have  grown  less  eager  or  keen  in  find- 
ing them.  I  think  there  is  no  point  in  which  minis- 
ters differ  from  one  another,  and  in  which  we  all  differ 
from  ourselves,  more  than  in  this, — this  open-minded- 
ness  and  power  of  appropriating  out  of  everything  the  , 
elements  of  true  instruction.  I  find  two  classes  of 
ministers  of  different  habits  in  this  respect.  One  of 
them  abjures  everything  outside  the  narrowest  lines 
of  technically  religious  reading,  has  no  knowledge  of 
literature  or  art  or  science.  The  other  minister  cul- 
tivates them  all,  but  his  life  in  them  is  wholly  outside 
of  his  life  as  a  preacher.  He  changes  his  nature  when 
he  turns  away  from  his  sermon  and  takes  a  volume 


48  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

from  his  shelves.  And  his  shelves  themselves  are  di- 
vided. His  secular  and  his  religious  books  are  ranged 
on  opposite  sides  of  his  study.  There  is  something 
better  than  either^ — a  true  devotion  to  our  work 
which  will  not  let  us  leave  it  for  a  moment  when  we 
are  once  ordained ;  preachers  once  and  preachers  al- 
ways 5  but  a  conception  of  our  work  so  large  that 
everything  which  a  true  man  has  any  right  to  do  or 
know  may  have  some  help  to  render  it.  And  this  is 
what  you  ought  to  be  laying  the  foundation  of  in 
these  preparatory  days. 

You  will  see  that  I  place  very  great  value  on  this 
preparation,  in  which  a  man  who  is  devout  and 
earnest  comes  to  that  fitness  for  his  work  which  St. 
Paul  describes  in  a  word  that  he  uses  twice  to  Timo- 
thy,—  ''apt  to  teach,"  "Aitenxog,"  the  didactic  man. 
It  is  not  something  to  which  one  comes  by  accident 
or  by  any  sudden  burst  of  fiery  zeal.  No  doubt  there 
is  a  power  in  the  untutored  utterance  of  the  new  con- 
vert that  the  ripe  utterances  of  the  educated  preacher 
often  lack ;  but  it  is  not  so  much  a  praise  to  the  new 
convert  that  he  has  that  power  as  it  is  a  shame  to  the 
educated  preacher  that  he  does  not  have  it  all  the 
more  richly  in  proportion  to  his  education.  And 
whatever  else  he  has,  the  man  who  has  leaped  directly 
from  his  own  experience  into  the  pulpit  will  almost 
certainly  be  wanting  in  that  breadth  of  sympathy  and 
understanding  which  comes  in  the  studies  of  the  wait- 


THE  PREACHER  HIMSELF.         '  49 

ing  years.  He  will  know  that  other  men  are  not 
made  just  like  himself,  but  he  will  realize  only  him- 
self, and  preach  to  them  as  if  they  were.  He  will  be 
like  the  man  whom  Archbishop  Whately  tells  of,  who 
was  born  blind  and  afterwards  brought  to  sight. 
"  The  room  he  was  in,  he  said,  he  knew  must  be  part 
of  the  house,  yet  he  could  not  conceive  that  the  whole 
house  could  look  bigger  than  that  one  room."  So  our 
new  Christian  experience  only  slowly  realizes  that  it 
is  but  one  part  of  the  universal  Christian  life.  Only 
as  our  study  carries  us  from  room  to  room  does  the 
whole  house  grow  real  to  us. 

Suppose  our  minister  now  actually  preaching,  and 
next  let  us  ask.  What  are  the  elements  of  personal 
power  which  will  make  him  successful  ?  Remember 
success  in  preaching  is  no  identical,  invariable  thing. 
It  differs  in  all  whom  we  call  successful  men,  and  so 
only  the  broadest  and  most  general  description  can 
be  given  of  the  qualities  that  will  secure  it.  Special 
successes  will  require  special  fitness.  But  he  who 
has  these  quaUties  that  I  enumerate  is  sure  to  succeed 
somewhere  and  somehow. 

And  first  among  the  elements  of  power  which  make 
success  I  must  put  the  supreme  importance  of  char-  / 
acter,  of  personal  uprightness  and  purity  impressing  I 
themselves  upon  the  men  who  witness  them.     There 
is  a  very  striking  remark  in  Lord  Nugent's  "  Memo- 
rials of  John  Hampden,"  where,  speaking  of  the  English 


50  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

Reformation,  he  is  led  to  make  this  general  observa- 
tion :  "  Indeed,  no  hierarchy  and  no  creed  has  ever 
been  overthrown  by  the  people  on  account  only  of  its 
theoretical  dogmas,  so  long  as  the  practice  of  the 
clergy  was  incorrupt  and  conformable  with  their  pro- 
fessions." I  believe  that  that  is  strictly  true.  And  it 
is  always  wonderful  to  see  how  much  stronger  are  the 
antipathies  and  sympathies  which  belong  to  men's 
moral  nature  than  those  which  are  purely  intellectual. 
Baxter  tells  us  in  an  interesting  passage  how  in  the 
civil  wars  "  an  abundance  of  the  ignorant  sort  of  the 
common  people  which  were  civil  did  flock  in  to  the 
Parliament  and  filled  up  their  armies  merely  because 
they  heard  men  stvear  for  the  Common  Prayer  and 
bishops,  and  heard  men  prmj  that  were  against  them. 
And  all  the  sober  men  that  I  was  acquainted  wdth  who 
were  against  the  Parliament  were  wont  to  say,  '  The 
king  hath  the  better  cause,  but  the  Parliament  the 
better  men.'"  The  better  men  will  always  conquer 
the  better  cause.  I  suppose  no  cause  could  be  so 
good  that,  sustained  by  bad  men  and  opposed  by  any 
error  whose  champions  were  men  of  spotless  lives,  it 
would  not  fall.  The  truth  must  conquer,  but  it  must 
first  embody  itseK  in  goodness.  And  in  the  ministry  it 
is  not  merely  by  superficial  prejudice,  but  by  the  sound- 
est reason,  that  intellect  and  spirituality  come  to  be 
tested,  not  by  the  views  men  hold  so  much  as  by  the 
way  in  which  they  hold  them,  and  the  sort  of  men 


1/ 


THE  PBEACHEB  HIMSELF.  51 

whicli  their  views  seem  to  make  of  them.  Whatever 
strange  and  scandalous  eccentricities  the  ministry  has 
sometimes  witnessed,  this  is  certainly  true,  and  is  al- 
ways encouraging,  that  no  man  permanently  succeeds 
in  it  who  cannot  make  men  believe  that  he  is  pure  and 
devoted,  and  the  only  sure  and  lasting  way  to  make 
men  believe  in  one's  devotion  and  purity  is  to  be  what 
one  wishes  to  be  believed  to  be.  J 

I  put  next  to  this  fundamental  necessity  of  char-  V^ 
acter  as  an  element  of  the  preacher's  power  the  free- 
doni  from  self -consciousness.  My  mind  goes  back  to 
a  young  man  whom  I  knew  in  the  ministry,  who  did 
an  amount  of  work  at  which  men  wondered,  and  who, 
dying  early,  left  a  power  behind  him  whose  influence 
will  go  on  long  after  his  name  is  forgotten  5  and  the 
great  feature  of  his  character  was  his  forgetfulness 
of  self.  He  had  not  two  questions  to  ask  about  every 
piece  of  work  he  did, — first,  "  How  shall  I  do  it  most 
effectively  for  others  ? "  and  second,  "  How  shall  I  do 
it  most  creditably  to  myself  ? "  Only  the  first  question 
ever  seemed  to  come  to  him ;  and  when  a  task  was 
done  so  that  it  should  most  perfectly  accomplish  its 
designed  result,  he  left  it  and  went  on  to  some  new 
task.  There  is  wonderful  clearness  and  economy  of 
force  in  such  simplicity.  No  man  ever  yet  thought 
whether  he  was  preaching  well  without  weakening  his 
sermon.  I  think  there  are  few  higher  or  more  de- 
lightful moments  in  a  preacher's  life  than  that  which 


52  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

comes  sometimes  when,  standing  before  a  congrega- 
tion and  haunted  by  questionings  about  the  merit  of 
your  preaching,  which  you  hate  but  cannot  drive 
away,  at  last,  suddenly  or  gradually,  you  find  your- 
self taken  into  the  power  of  your  truth,  absorbed  in 
one  sole  desire  to  send  it  into  the  men  whom  you  are 
preaching  to ;  and  then  every  sail  is  set,  and  your  ser- 
mon goes  bravely  out  to  sea,  leaving  yourself  high 
and  dry  upon  the  beach,  where  it  has  been  holding 
your  sermon  stranded.  The  second  question  disap- 
pears out  of  your  work  just  in  proportion  as  the  first 
question  grows  intense.  No  man  is  perfectly  strong 
until  the  second  question  has  disappeared  entirely. 
Devotion  is  like  the  candle  which,  as  Vasari  tells  us, 
Michael  Angelo  used  to  carry  stuck  on  his  forehead  in 
a  pasteboard  cap,  and  which  kept  his  own  shadow 
from  being  cast  upon  his  work  while  he  was  hewing 
out  his  statues. 

f  The  next  element  of  a  preacher's  power  is  genuine 
respect  for  the  people  whom  he  preaches  to.  1  should 
not  like  to  say  how  rare  I  think  this  power,  or  how 
plentiful  a  source  of  weakness  I  think  its  absence  is. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  the  genuine  sympathy  of  sen- 
timent. There  is  a  great  deal  of  liking  for  certain 
people  in  our  congregations  who  are  interesting  in 
themselves  and  who  are  interested  in  what  interests 
us.     There  is  a  great  deal  of  the  feeling  that  the  clergy 


THE  PBEACHEB  HIMSELF.  53 

need  the  cooperation  of  the  laity,  and  so  must  cultivate 
their  intimacy.  But  of  a  real  profound  respect  for  the 
men  and  women  whom  we  preach  to,  simply  as  men 
and  women,  of  a  deep  value  for  the  capacity  that  is  in 
them,  a  sense  that  we  are  theirs  and  not  they  ours,  I 
think  that  there  is  far  too  little.  But  without  this 
there  can  be  no  real  strength  in  the  preacher.  We 
patronize  the  laity  now  that  our  power  of  domineering 
over  them  has  been  mercifully  taken  away.  Many  a 
time  the  tone  of  a  clergyman  who  has  talked  of  the 
relations  of  the  preacher  and  the  people,  setting  forth, 
with  the  best  will  in  the  world,  theii'  mutual  functions, 
reminds  one  of  the  sermon  of  the  mediaeval  preacher, 
who,  discoursing  on  this  same  subject,  on  the  necessary 
cooperation  of  the  clergy  and  the  laity,  took  his  text 
out  of  Job  i.  14 :  '^  The  oxen  were  ploughing  and  the 
asses  feeding  beside  them."  There  is  no  good  preach- 
ing in  the  supercilious  preacher.  No  man  preaches 
well  who  has  not  a  strong  and  deep  appreciation  of 
humanity.  The  minister  is  often  called  upon  to  give 
up  the  society  of  the  cultivated  and  learned  to  whom 
he  would  most  be  drawn,  but  he  finds  his  compensa- 
tion and  strength  in  knowing  man,  simply  as  man, 
and  learning  his  inestimable  worth. 

I  think,  again,  that  it  is  essential  to  the  preacher's 
success  that  he  should  thoroughly  enjoy  his  work.  I 
mean  in  the  actual  doing  of  it,  and  not  only  in  its 


( 


; 


54  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

idea.  No  man  to  whom  the  details  of  his  task  are  re- 
pulsive can  do  his  task  weU  constantly,  however  full 
he  may  be  of  its  spirit.  He  may  make  one  bold  dash 
at  it  and  carry  it  over  all  his  disgusts,  but  he  cannot 
work  on  at  it  year  after  year,  day  after  day.  There- 
fore, count  it  not  merely  a  perfectly  legitimate  pleasure, 
count  it  an  essential  element  of  your  power,  if  you  can 
feel  a  simple  delight  in  what  you  have  to  do  as  a  min- 
ister, in  the  fervor  of  writing,  in  the  glow  of  speaking, 
in  standing  before  men  and  moving  them,  in  contact 
with  the  young.  The  more  thoroughly  you  enjoy  it, 
the  better  you  will  do  it  all. 

I  almost  hesitate  as  I  speak  of  the  next  element  of 
the  preacher's  power.  I  almost  doubt  by  what  name  I 
shall  call  it  to  give  the  impression  of  the  thing  I  mean. 
Perhaps  there  is  no  better  name  than  Gravity.  I 
mean  simply  that  grave  and  serious  way  of  looking 
at  life  which,  while  it  never  repels  the  true  hghtheart- 
edness  of  pure  and  trustful  hearts,  welcomes  into  a 
manifest  sympathy  the  souls  of  men  who  are  oppressed 
and  burdened,  anxious  and  fuU  of  questions  which  for 
the  time  at  least  have  banished  all  laughter  from  their 
faces.  I  know,  indeed,  the  miserableness  of  all  mock 
gravity.  I  think  I  am  as  much  disgusted  at  it  as  any- 
body. The  abuse  and  satire  that  have  been  heaped 
upon  it  are  legitimate  enough,  though  somewhat 
cheap.  "Tlie  gravity  that  is  assumed,  that  merely  hides 
with  solemn  front  the  lack  of  thought  and  feeling, 


THE  PREACHER  HIMSELF.  55 

tlicit  is  put  on  as  the  uniform  of  a  profession,  that  con- 
sists in  certain  forms,  and  is  shocked  at  any  serious 
thought  of  life  more  truly  grave  than  it  is,  but  which 
happens  to  show  itself  under  other  forms  which  it 
chooses  to  call  frivolous,  this  is  worthy  of  all  satire 
and  contempt. .  The  merely  solemn  ministers  are  very 
empty,  and  deserve  all  that  has  been  heaped  upon 
them  of  contempt  through  all  the  ages.  They  are 
cheats  and  shams.  As  they  stand  with  their  little 
knobs  of  prejudice  down  their  straight  coats  of 
precision,  they  are  like  nothing  so  much  as  the  chest 
of  drawers  which  Mr.  Bob  Sawyer  showed  to  Mr. 
Winkle  in  his  little  surgery :  "  Dummies,  my  dear 
boy,"  said  he  to  his  impressed,  astonished  visitor ; 
"half  the  drawers  have  nothing  in  them,  and  the 
other  half  don't  open."  I  know  what  the  abuse  of 
such  men  means.  I  know  there  are  men  who  deserve 
it.  But  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  we  have  about 
come  to  the  time  when  all  of  that  abuse  is  of  the 
safe  and  feeble  character  which  belongs  to  all  satire 
of  unpopular  foibles  and  abuses  which  are  in  decay. 
I  think  that  at  least  there  is  another  creature  who 
ought  to  share  with  the  clerical  prig  the  contempt 
of  Christian  people.  I  mean  the  clerical  jester  in  all 
the  varieties  of  his  unpleasant  existence.  He  appears 
in  and  out  of  the  pulpit.  He  lays  his  hands  on  the 
most  sacred  things,  and  leaves  defilement  upon  all  he 
touches.     He  is  full  of  Bible  jokes.     He  talks  about 


56  LECTUBES  ON  PREACHING . 

the  Church's  sacred  symbols  in  the  language  of  stale 
jests  that  have  come  down  from  generations  of  feeble 
clerical  jesters  before  him.  The  doctrines  which,  if 
they  mean  anything,  mean  life  or  death  to  souls,  he 
turns  into  material  for  chaff  that  flies  back  and  forth, 
like  the  traditional  banter  of  the  Thames,  between  the 
clerical  watermen  who  ply  their  boats  on  this  side  or 
that  side  of  the  river  of  Theology.  There  are  passages 
in  the  Bible  which  are  soiled  forever  by  the  touches 
which  the  hands  of  ministers  who  dehght  in  cheap  and 
easy  jokes  have  left  upon  them. 

I  think  there  is  nothing  that  stirs  one's  indignation 
more  than  this,  in  all  he  sees  of  ministers.  It  is  a 
purely  wanton  fault.  What  is  simply  stupid  every- 
where else  becomes  terrible  here.  The  buffoonery 
which  merely  tries  me  when  I  hear  it  from  a  gang  of 
laborers  digging  a  ditch  beside  my  door  angers  and 
frightens  me  when  it  comes  from  the  lips  of  the  cap- 
tain who  holds  the  helm  or  the  surgeon  on  whose  skill 
my  life  depends.  You  will  not  misunderstand  me,  I 
am  sure.  The  gravity  of  which  I  speak  is  not  incon- 
sistent with  the  keenest  perception  of  the  ludicrous  side 
of  things.  It  is  more  than  consistent  with — it  is  even 
necessary  to — humor.  Humor  involves  the  perception 
of  the  true  proportions  of  life.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
helpful  qualities  that  the  preacher  can  possess.  There 
is  no  extravagance  which  deforms  the  pulpit  which 


THE  PREACHER  HIMSELF.  57 

would  not  be  modified  and  repressed,  often  entirely 
obliterated,  if  the  minister  bad  a  true  sense  of  burner. 
It  bas  softened  tbe  bitterness  of  controversy  a  thou- 
sand times.  You  cannot  encourage  it  too  mucb.  You 
cannot  grow  too  familiar  witb  tbe  books  of  all  ages 
wbicb  bave  in  tbem  tbe  truest  bumor,  for  tbe  truest 
bumor  is  tbe  bloom  of  tbe  bigbest  life.  Read  George 
Eliot  and  Tbackeray,  and,  above  aU,  Sbakespeare. 
Tbey  will  belp  you  to  keep  from  extravagances  with- 
out fading  into  insipidity.  Tbey  will  preserve  your 
gravity  wbile  tbey  save  you  from  pompous  solemnity. 
But  bumor  is  something  very  different  from  frivobty. 
People  sometimes  ask  whether  it  is  right  to  make 
people  laugh  in  church  by  something  that  you  sa}^  from 
the  pulpit, — as  if  laughter  were  always  one  invariable 
thing ;  as  if  there  were  not  a  smile  which  swept  across 
a  great  congregation  like  the  breath  of  a  May  morn- 
ing, making  it  fruitful  for  whatever  good  thing  might 
be  sowed  in  it,  and  another  laughter  that  was  bke  tbe 
cracMing  of  thorns  under  a  pot.  Tbe  smile  that  is 
stirred  by  true  humor  and  the  smile  that  comes  from 
tbe  mere  tickling  of  tbe  fancy  are  as  different  from  one 
another  as  tbe  tears  that  sorrow  forces  from  the  soul 
are  from  the  tears  that  you  compel  a  man  to  shed  by 
pinching  him. 

And  there  is  no  delusion  greater  than  to  think  that 
you  commend  your  work  and  gain  an  influence  over 


58  LKCrURES   ON  PREACHING. 

people  by  becoming  the  clerical  humorist.  It  builds 
a  wall  between  your  fellow-men  and  you.  It  makes 
them  less  incUned  to  seek  you  in  their  spiritual  need. 
I  think  that  many  of  us  feel  this,  and  have  a  sort  of 
dread  when  we  see  laymen  growing  familiar  with 
clergymen's  society.  That  society  is  on  the  whole 
lofty  and  inspiring,  but  there  are  some  things  in  it  of 
which  you  who  are  soon  to  become  clergymen  must 
beware.  Keep  the  sacredness  of  your  profession  clear 
and  bright  even  in  little  things.  Refrain  from  all  jok- 
ing about  congregations,  flocks,  parish  visits,  sermons, 
the  mishaps  of  the  pulpit,  or  the  makeshifts  of  the 
study.  Such  joking  is  always  bad,  and  almost  al- 
ways stupid ;  but  it  is  very  common,  and  it  takes  the 
bloom  off  a  young  minister's  life.  This  is  the  reason 
why  so  many  people  shrink,  I  believe,  from  personally 
knowing  the  preachers  to  whom  they  listen  with  re- 
spect and  gratitude.  They  fear  what  they  so  often 
find.  But  reaUy  the  minister's  life  may  be  a  help  and 
enforcement  of  all  his  preaching.  The  quality  which 
makes  it  so  is  this  which  I  call  gravity.  It  has  a  deli- 
cate power  of  discrimination.  It  attracts  aU  that  it 
can  help  and  it  repels  all  that  could  harm  it  or  be 
harmed  by  it.  It  admits  the  earnest  and  siinple  with 
a  cordial  welcome.  It  shuts  out  the  impertinent  and 
insincere  inexorably.  Pure  gravit}^  is  like  the  hinges 
of  the  wonderful  gates  of  the  ancient  labyrinth,  so 
strong  that  no  battery  could  break  them  down,  but 


THE  PEEACHER  HIMSELF.  59 

SO  delicately  hung  that  a  child's  Hght  touch  could 
make  them  swing  back  and  let  him  in. 

There  is  another  source  of  power  which  I  can 
hardly  think  of  as  a  separate  quality,  but  rather  as 
the  sum  and  result  of  all  the  qualities  which  I  have 
been  naming. ,'  I  mean  Courage.  It  is  the  indispen- 
sable requisite  of  any  true  ministry.  The  timid  min- 
ister is  as  bad  as  the  timid  surgeon.  Courage  is  good 
everywhere,  but  it  is  necessary  here.  If  you  are  afraid 
of  men  and  a  slave  to  their  opinion,  go  and  do  some- 
thing else.  Go  and  make  shoes  to  fit  them.  Go  even 
and  paint  pictures  which  you  know  are  bad  but  which 
suit  their  bad  taste.  But  do  not  keep  on  all  your  life 
preaching  sermons  which  shall  say  not  what  God  sent 
you  to  declare,  but  what  they  hire  you  to  say.  Be 
courageous.  Be  independent.  Only  remember  where 
the  true  courage  and  independence  comes  from. 
Courage  in  the  ministry  is,  I  think,  one  of  those 
qualities  which  cannot  be  healthily  acquired  if  it  is 
sought  for  directly.  It  must  come  as  health  comes  in 
the  body,  as  the  result  of  the  seeking  for  other  things. 
It  must  be  from  a  sincere  respect  for  men's  higher 
nature  that  you  must  grow  bold  to  resist  their  whims. 
He  who  begins  by  despising  men  will  often  end  by 
being  their  slav^.  A  passionate  desire  to  do  men 
good  is  always  the  surest  safeguard  that  they  shall 
not  do  us  harm.  Jesus  himself  was  bold  before  men 
out  of  the  infinite  love  which  He  felt  for  men.     That 


60  LUC  TUBES  ON  FEE  ACHING. 

was  the  way  in  which  He  ruled  them  from  His  cross, 
and  was  their  master  because  He  was  their  servant 
even  unto  death. 

There  is  one  other  topic  upon  which  I  wished  to 
dwell  in  this  lecture,  but  on  this  I  must  speak  very 
briefl}^  I  wanted  to  try  to  estimate  with  you  some  of 
the  dangers  to  a  man's  own  character  which  come  from 
his  being  a  preacher.  The  first  of  these  dangers,  be- 
yond all  doubt,  is  Self-conceit.  In  a  certain  sense 
every  young  minister  is  conceited.  He  begins  his 
ministry  in  a  conceited  condition.  At  least  every 
man  begins  with  extravagant  expectations  of  what 
his  ministry  is  to  result  in.  We  come  out  from  it 
by  and  by.  A  man's  first  wonder  when  he  begins  to 
preach  is  that  people  do  not  come  to  hear  him.  After 
a  while,  if  he  is  good  for  anything,  he  begins  to  won- 
der that  they  do.  He  finds  out  that  old  Adam  is  too 
strong  for  young  Melanchthon.  It  is  not  strange  that 
it  should  be  so.  It  is  not  to  the  young  minister's  dis- 
credit that  it  should  be  so.  The  student  for  the  min- 
istry has  to  a  large  extent  comprehended  the  force  by 
which  he  is  to  work,  but  he  has  not  measured  the  re- 
sistance that  he  is  to  meet.  He  knows  the  power  of 
the  truth  of  which  he  is  all  full,  but  he  has  not  esti- 
mated the  sin  of  which  the  world  is  all  full.  The 
more  earnest  and  intense  and  full  of  love  for  God 
and  man  he  is,  the  more  impossible  does  it  seem  that 
he  should  not  do  great  things  for  his  Master.     And 


THE  PREACHER  HIMSELF.  61 

then  the  character  of  men's  ministries,  it  seems  to  me, 
depends  very  largely  upon  the  ways  in  which  they 
pass  out  of  that  first  self-confidence  and  upon  what 
condition  comes  afterwards  when  it  is  gone. 

The  first  way  in  which  life  affects  this  self-confi- 
dence and  lifts  men  out  of  their  conceit  is  by  Success, 
by  letting  us  see  the  work  which  we  are  undertaking 
actually  going  on  under  our  hands.  It  is  only  in  poor 
men  and  in  the  lower  things  that  success  increases 
self-conceit.  In  every  high  work  and  in  men  worthy 
of  it,  success  is  always  sui-e  to  bring  humility.  ^'  Rec- 
ognition," said  Hawthorne  once,  "  makes  a  man  very 
modest."  The  knowledge  that  you  are  really  accom- 
plishing results,  and  the  reassurance  of  that  knowledge 
by  the  judgment  of  your  fellow-men,  opens  to  you  the 
deeper  meaning  of  your  work,  shows  you  how  great 
it  is,  makes  you  ashamed  of  aU  the  praise  men  give 
you,  as  you  see  gradually  how  much  better  your  work 
might  have  been  done.  I  think  that  some  of  the 
noblest  and  richest  characters  among  ministers  in  all 
times  are  those  who  have  been  humiliated  by  men's 
praises  and  enlightened  by  success. 

But  there  is  another  way  by  which  men  go  out  of 
their  first  satisfaction,  by  a  door  directly  opposite  to 
this, — by  Failure.  Failure  and  success  to  really  work- 
ing ministers  are  only  relative.  Remember  that  no 
true  man  wholly  succeeds  or  wholly  fails.  But  the 
main  difference  in  effect  between  what  we  call  success 


62  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

and  what  we  call  failure  in  the  ministry  is  here :  suc- 
cess makes  a  man  dwell  upon  and  be  thankful  for  how 
much  a  preacher  can  do ;  failure  makes  a  man  think  \ 
how  much  there  is  which  no  preacher  can  do,  and  is 
apt  to  weigh  him  down  into  depression.  It  confronts 
him  with  the  magnitude  of  the  task  of  the  Christian 
ministry,  not  as  a  great  temptation,  but  as  a  great 
burden.     He  is  paralyzed  as  Hamlet  was. 

"  The  time  is  out  of  joint :  O  cursed  spite, 
That  ever  I  was  born  to  set  it  right !  " 

Such  an  end  of  a  young  man's  first  high  hopes  is 
terrible  to  see.  The  very  power  that  once  made  him 
strong  now  weakens  him.  The  weight  that  was  his 
ballast  and  helped  his  speed  sinks  him  when  once  the 
leak  has  come.  There  is  no  help  except  in  a  prof  ounder 
retreat  of  the  whole  nature  upon  God, — such  a  percep- 
tion of  Him  and  of  His  dearness  as  shall  take  off  our 
heavy  responsibility  and  make  us  ready  to  fail  for  Him 
with  joy  as  well  as  to  succeed  for  Him,  if  such  shall' 
be  His  choice ;  and  ready  to  work  as  hard  for  Him  in 
failure  as  in  success,  because  we  work  not  for  success 
biit  for  Him.  The  drawing  of  the  man  back  into  God 
by  failure  is  always  a  noble  sight,  and  no  region  of  hf e 
has  such  noble  specimens  of  it  to  show  as  the  Chris- 
tian ministry. 

There  is  another  refuge  when  the  young  preacher's 
first  self-conceit  is  shaken.     It  is  into  another  seK-coU' 


THE  PBEACREB   HIMSELF.  63 

ceit  wliich  is  smaller  than  the  first.  The  beleaguered 
householder  refuses  to  surrender,  and  retreats  from 
his  strong  outer  ramparts,  defending  one  line  after 
another  till  at  last  he  dwells  only  in  his  most  mean 
and  worthless  chamber.  A  man  makes  up  his  mind 
that  he  is  not  going  to  convert  the  world.  The  strong- 
holds of  the  Prince  of  Evil  evidently  will  not  fall  be- 
fore him.  He  is  to  leave  the  unbuilt  kingdom  of  God 
very  much  as  he  found  it  when  he  came  into  the  min- 
istry. But  then  he  falls  back  upon  some  petty  pride. 
"  My  church  is  full ;  "  "  My  name  is  prominent  in  the 
movements  of  my  denomination ;  "  "  My  sermons  win 
the  compliments  of  people ;  "  or  simply  this,  "  I  am  a 
minister.  I  bear  a  dignity  that  these  laymen  cannot 
boast.  I  have  an  ordination  which  separates  me  into 
an  indefinable,  mysterious  privilege."  Here  is  the  be- 
ginning of  many  of  the  fantastic  and  exaggerated 
theories  about  the  ministry.  The  little  preacher 
magnifies  his  office  in  a  most  unpauline  way.  And 
you  hear  a  man  to  whom  no  one  cares  to  listen  quot- 
ing the  solemn  words  of  Grod  about  "whether  men 
will  hear  or  whether  they  will  forbear,"  as  if  they  had 
been  spoken  to  him  as  much  as  to  Ezekiel. 

What  shall  we  say  then  ?  What  is  the  true  escape 
from  the  crudeness  of  the  untried  preacher  which 
settles  and  centres  all  his  thought  upon  himself  ?  It 
is  an  escape  which  many  a  preacher  has  found  and 
gradually  passed  into.     It  is  the  growing  devotion  of 


64  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

his  life  to  God,  the  more  and  more  complete  absorp- 
tion of  his  being  in  the  seeking  of  God's  glory.  As 
he  goes  on,  the  work  unfolds  itself.  It  outgoes  all  his 
powers.  But  as  he  looks  over  its  increasing  vastness 
he  sees  it  on  every  side  touching  the  omnipotence  of 
God.  As  he  sees  more  and  more  clearly  that  he  will 
never  do  what  he  once  hoped  to  do,  it  becomes  clear 
to  him  at  the  same  time  that  God  will  do  it  in  His  own 
time  and  way.  His  own  disappointment  is  swallowed 
up  and  drowned  in  the  promise  of  his  Lord's  success. 
He  becomes  a  true  John  Baptist.  He  is  happy  with  a 
higher  joy,  and  works  with  an  energ}^  that  he  never 
knew  before.  This  is  the  true  refuge  of  the  minister 
in  the  disenchantment  of  his  earliest  dreams. 

xinother  of  the  dangers  of  the  clergyman's  life  is 
Self-indulgence.  The  ways  and  methods  of  the  min- 
ister's work  are  almost  wholly  at  his  own  control.  It 
is  impossible  for  him  to  reduce  his  hfe  to  a  routine. 
There  are  but  few  tests  which  he  must  meet  at  special 
times,  as  a  business  man  must  meet  his  notes  when 
they  are  due.  And  a  great  deal  of  his  work  is  of  that 
sort  which  requires  spontaneity  for  its  best  execution. 
The  result  of  all  these  causes  working  together  is  to 
create  in  many  a  minister  a  certain  feeling  that  his 
faithfulness  in  his  work  is  not  to  be  judged  as  other 
men's  faithfulness  in  their  work  is.  Indeed,  I  think,  the 
very  consciousness  of  laboring  under  a  loftier  motive 


THE  PBEACHEB   HIMSELF.  65 

has  often  a  tendency  to  weaken  the  conscientiousness 
with  which  each  minute  detail  of  work  is  met.  There 
is  a  lurking  Antinomianism  in  many  a  most  Arminian 
study.  We  are  apt  to  become  men  of  moods,  thinking 
we  cannot  work  unless  we  feel  Hke  it.  There  is  just 
enough  of  the  artistic  element  in  what  we  have  to  do,  to 
let  us  fall  into  the  artist's  ways  and  leave  our  brushes 
idle  when  the  sky  frowns  or  the  head  aches.  But  the 
artistic  element  is,  after  all,  the  smallest  element  in 
the  true  sermon.  Its  best  qualities  depend  on  those 
moral  and  spiritual  conditions  which  may  be  always 
present  in  the  devoted  servant  of  God.  And  so  the 
first  business  of  the  preacher  is  to  conquer  the  tyranny 
of  his  moods,  and  to  be  always  ready  for  his  work. 
It  can  be  done.  The  man  who  has  not  learned  to  do 
it  has  not  really  reached  the  secret  of  Jesus,  which 
was  such  utter  love  for  His  Father  and  man,  between 
whom  He  stood,  as  obliterated  all  thought  of  Himself 
save  as  a  medium,  through  which  the  divine  might 
come  down  to  the  human.  We  read  of  Jesus  that  He 
again  and  again  grew  heavy  in  spirit.  In  utter  weari- 
ness, sometimes,  when  His  work  was  done.  He  would 
withdraw  into  a  mountain,  or  put  out  in  a  boat  upon 
the  lake.  We  can  feel  the  fluctuations  of  that  human- 
ity of  His,  and,  interpreting  it  by  our  own,  we  can 
seem  to  see  how  one  bright  morning  by  the  seaside 
He  was  exuberant  and  joyous,  and  on  another  morn- 


66  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

ing  He  would  be  sad  and  burdened.  We  can  trace 
the  differences  in  the  kind  of  preaching  of  the  two 
different  days.  But  through  it  all  there  is  nothing  in 
the  least  like  self-indulgence.  We  are  sure  that  no 
day  ever  went  without  its  preaching,  because  it  found 
Him  moody  and  depressed.  He  did  no  mighty  works 
in  Nazareth ;  but  it  was  because  of  the  people's  unbe- 
lief, not  because  of  His  own  reluctance.  So  it  may  be 
with  us.  It  is  part  of  the  privilege  of  our  humanity, 
it  is  part  of  the  advantage  of  our  people  in  having 
men  and  not  machines  for  ministers,  that  we  preach 
the  truth  in  various  lights,  or  shades,  according  as 
God  brightens  or  darkens  our  own  experience;  but 
any  mood  which  makes  us  unfit  to  preach  at  all,  or 
really  weakens  our  will  to  preach,  is  bad,  and  can  be 
broken  through.  Then  is  the  time  for  the  conscience 
to  bestir  itself  and  for  the  man  to  be  a  man. 

I  wish  that  it  were  possible  for  one  to  speak  to  the 
laity  of  our  churches  frankly  and  freely  about  their 
treatment  of  the  clergy.  The  clergy  are  largely  what 
the  laity  make  them.  And  though  one  may  look 
wholly  without  regret  upon  the  departure  of  that  rev- 
erence which  seems  to  have  clothed  the  preacher's 
ofi&ce  in  our  fathers'  days,  I  think  he  must  have  many 
misgivings  about  the  weaker  substitute  for  it,  which 
in  many  instances  has  taken  its  place.  It  was  not 
good  that  the  minister  should  be  worshipped  and 
made  an  oracle.     It  is  still  worse  that  he  should  be 


THE  PEE  AGREE  HIMSELF.  67 

flattered  and  made  a  pet.  And  there  is  sucli  a  ten- 
dency in  these  days  among  our  weaker  people.  I 
have  already  spoken  of  the  way  in  which  many  men 
are  petted  into  the  ministry.  It  is  possible  for  such 
a  man,  if  he  has  popular  gifts,  to  be  petted  all  through 
his  ministry,  never  once  to  come  into  strong  contact 
with  other  men,  or  to  receive  one  good  hard  knock 
of  the  sort  that  brings  out  manliness  and  character. 
The  people  who  gather  closest  around  a  minister's 
life,  believing  his  beliefs,  and  accepting  his  standards, 
make  a  sort  of  cushion  between  him  and  the  unbelief 
and  wickedness  which  smite  other  men  in  the  face  and 
wound  them  mercilessly  at  every  turn.  It  is  not 
wholly  unnatural.  The  minister  stands  in  a  unique 
position  to  the  community.  In  no  other  man's  pri- 
vate affairs,  his  health,  his  comfort,  his  freedom  from 
financial  care,  are  so  many  people  so  directly  interested. 
It  is  not  strange  that  that  interest  in  him  and  care  for 
him,  which  ought  simply  to  put  him  where,  without 
personal  fear  or  personal  indebtedness,  he  may  bravely 
and  independently  be  himself  and  speak  out  his  own 
soul,  should  often  be  corrupted  into  a  poison  of  his 
manhood,  and  a  temptation  to  his  self-indulgence.  It 
is  beyond  all  doubt  the  weak  point  of  our  American 
voluntary  system,  which  brings  the  minister  into  those 
close  personal  relations  to  his  people  which  on  the 
whole  are  good  and  healthy,  but  which  have  this  one 
defect  and  danger. 


68  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

If  you  have  read  the  life  of  Frederick  Robertson 
you  know  how  hateful  many  of  the  incidents  of  the  life 
of  a  popular  minister  were  to  him.  So  they  must  be 
to  every  true  man.  If  a  man  is  not  wholly  true  they 
find  out  his  weak  point  and  fix  upon  it.  He  begins 
to  expect  different  treatment  from  other  men.  His 
personal  woes  and  pains  seem  to  him  things  of  public 
interest.  He  grows  first  unhuman  in  the  separation 
from  the  ordinary  standard  of  his  race,  and  that 
makes  him  inhuman,  unsympathetic.  The  weak  is 
always  cruel. 

Mr.  Galton,  in  his  work  on  "Hereditary  Genius," 
summing  up  the  result  of  his  reading  in  clerical  biog- 
raphies, declares  that  "A  gently  complaining  and 
fatigued  spirit  is  that  in  which  Evangelical  Divines 
are  very  apt  to  pass  their  days."  These  words  tell 
perfectly  a  story  that  we  all  know  who  have  been  in- 
timate with  many  ministers.  That  which  ought  to  be 
the  manliest  of  all  professions  has  a  tendency,  practi- 
cally, to  make  men  unmanly.  Men  make  appeals  for 
sympathy  that  no  true  man  should  make.  They  take 
to  themselves  St.  Paul's  pathos  without  St.  Paul's 
strength.  Against  that  tendency,  my  friends,  set  your 
whole  force.  Fear  its  insidiousness.  "  I  feel  no  in- 
toxicating effect,"  wrote  Macaulay  when  the  first  flush 
of  his  success  was  on  him,  "  but  a  man  may  be  drunk 
without  knowing  it."  Insist  on  applying  to  yoiu-self 
tests  which  others  refuse  to  apply  to  you.     Resent  in- 


THE  PREACHER   HIMSELF.  69 

dulgences  which  are  not  given  to  men  of  other  pro- 
fessions. Learn  to  enjoy  and  be  sober ;  learn  to  suffer 
and  be  strong.  Never  appeal  for  sympathy.  Let  it 
find  you  ont  if  it  will.  Connt  your  manliness  the  soul 
of  your  ministry  and  resist  all  attacks  upon  it  however 
sweetly  they  may  come. 

I  had  hoped  to  say  some  words,  to-day,  about  one 
other  danger  of  the  preacher's  life,  I  mean  the  danger 
/of  narrowness.  We  all  live  within  the  rings  of  con- 
"^centric  circles.  They  extend  one  beyond  another  till 
they  come  to  that  outmost  circle  of  all,  the  horizon 
where  humanity  touches  divinity,  as  the  earth  meets 
the  sky.  Now  I  hold  that  all  that  is  by  God's  appoint- 
ment, and  is  intended  for  our  best  good.  The  narrow- 
ness is  for  the  sake  of  breadth.  I  hold  that  every 
smaller  circle  is  meant  to  carry  the  eye  out  to  the 
next  larger  than  itseK,  and  so,  at  last,  to  the  largest 
of  all.  You  stand  firm  on  your  one  little  spot,  and 
thence  you  look  out  and  find  yourself,  like  Tenny- 
son's eagle,  ''  ringed  with  the  azure  world."  So  every 
smaller  circle  of  your  moral  life  is  meant  to  carry  you 
out,  and  make  you  realize  the  larger  circles.  You 
may  be  a  better  minister  because  you  are  clear  in 
your  denominational  position  as  a  Congregationalist 
or  Episcopalian ;  and  because  you  are  a  minister  you 
may  be  a  better  man.  The  danger  is  lest  the  smaller 
circle,  instead  of  tempting  the  sight  onward,  jealously 
confines  it  to  itself.     Narrowness  is  to  be  escaped,  not 


70  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING, 

by  deserting  our  special  function,  but  by  compelling 
it  to  open  to  us  the  things  beyond  itself.  You  will 
not  be  a  better  man  by  pretending  that  you  are  not  a 
Christian,  nor  a  better  Christian  by  pretending  to  have 
no  dogmatic  faith.  The  true  breadth  comes  by  the 
strength  of  your  own  belief  making  you  tolerant  of 
other  believers ;  and  by  the  earnestness  of  your  Chris- 
tianity teaching  you  your  brotherhood  even  to  the 
most  unchristian  men. 

I  must  stop  here.  I  have  spoken  very  freely  of  these 
dangers  and  hindrances  with  which  the  preacher's  oc- 
cupations beset  his  character.  Yet  you  must  not  mis- 
understand me.  There  is  no  occupation  in  which  it 
is  so  possible,  nay  so  easy  to  live  a  noble  life.  These 
tares  grow  rank  only  because  the  soil  is  rich.  The 
wheat  grows  rich  beside  them.  The  Christian  minis- 
try is  the  largest  field  for  the  growth  of  a  human  soul 
that  this  world  offers.  In  it  he  who  is  faithful  must 
go  on  learning  more  and  more  forever.  His  growth 
in  learning  is  all  bound  up  with  his  growth  in  char- 
acter. Nowhere  else  do  the  moral  and  intellectual  so 
sympathize,  and  lose  or  gain  together.  The  minister 
must  grow.  His  true  growth  is  not  necessarily  a 
change  of  views.  It  is  a  change  of  view.  It  is  not 
revolution.  It  is  progress.  It  is  a  continual  climb- 
ing which  opens  continually  wider  prospects.  It  re- 
peats the  experience  of  Christ's  disciples,  of  whom 


THE  P BE  AC  HE B  HIMSELF.  71 

their  Lord  was  always  making  larger  men  and  then 
giving  them  the  larger  truth  of  which  their  enlarged 
natures  had  become  capable.  Once  more,  I  rejoice 
for  you  that  this  is  the  ministry  in  which  you  are  to 
spend  your  lives. 


THE  PREACHER  IN   HIS   WORK. 


XT'THEN  I  was  just  about  to  begin  the  writing  of 
*  *  this  lecture,  I  chanced  to  be  thrown  for  a  day 
or  two  into  the  company  of  a  young  man  who  had 
been  engaged  in  the  work  of  the  ministry  only  a  few 
months.  He  was  in  the  first  flush  and  fervor  of  his 
new  experience,  and  in  listening  to  him  I  recalled 
much  of  the  spirit  with  which  I  myself  began  many 
years  ago.  The  spirit  had  not  passed  away,  but  the 
first  freshness  of  many  impressions  had  been  ripened, 
I  hope,  into  something  better,  but  still  into  something 
soberer.  He  revived  for  me  the  delight  of  that  new 
and  strange  relation  to  his  fellow-men  which  comes 
when  a  young  man  who  thus  far  in  his  life  has  had 
others  ministering  to  him,  finds  the  conditions  now 
reversed  and  other  men  are  looking  up  to  him  for  cul- 
ture. There  is  the  sober  joy  of  responsibility.  There 
is  the  surprised  recognition  of  something  which  we 
have  learned  in  some  one  of  our  schools  of  books  or 
life,  and  counted  useless,  which  now  some  man  we  meet 
welcomes  when  we  give  it  to  him  as  if  it  were  the  one 

72 


THE  PREACHER  IN  HIS    WORK,  73 

thing  for  which  he  had  been  always  waiting.  There 
is  the  hopefulness  that  fears  no  failure.  There  is  the 
pleasure  of  a  new  knowledge  of  ourselves  as  others 
begin  to  call  out  in  us  what  we  never  knew  was  there. 
There  is  the  joy  of  being  trusted  and  responded  to. 
There  is  the  deepened  sacredness  of  prayer  and  of 
communion  with  God  when  we  go  to  Him,  not  merely 
for  ourselves  and  for  the  great  vague  world,  but  for 
a  people  whom  we  have  begun  to  love  and  call  our 
own,  while  we  know  that  they  are  His.  There  is  the 
discovery  of  the  better  and  devouter  nature  in  men. 
There  is  the  interest  of  countless  new  details  and  the 
inspiration  of  the  noblest  purpose  for  which  a  man 
can  live.  All  these  together  make  up  the  happiness 
and  hope  of  those  bright  days  in  which  a  strong  and 
healthy  and  devout  young  man  is  just  entering  the 
ministry  of  the  Gospel. 

I  wish  to  speak  to  you  to-day  about  the  preacher  in 
his  work,  and  what  I  shall  have  to  say  will  naturally 
divide  itself  into  suggestions  with  reference  to  the 
nature,  the  method,  and  the  spirit  of  that  work. 

I  must  recur  to  what  I  said  in  the  first  lecture  about 
the  true  character  of  preaching.  Preaching  is  the  com- 
munication of  truth  through  a  man  to  men.  The  hu- 
man element  is  essential  in  it,  and  not  merely  acciden- 
tal. There  cannot  really  be  a  sermon  in  a  stone,  what- 
ever lessons  the  stone  may  have  to  teach.  This  being 
so,  we  must  carry  out  the  importance  of  the  human 


74  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

element  to  its  full  consequence.  It  is  not  only  neces- 
sary for  a  sermon  that  there  should  be  a  human  being 
to  speak  to  other  human  beings,  but  for  a  good  ser- 
mon there  must  be  a  man  who  can  speak  well,  whose 
nature  stands  in  right  relations  to  those  to  whom  he 
speaks,  who  has  brought  his  life  close  to  theirs  with 
sympathy.  In  every  highest  task  there  is  an  instinc- 
tive tendency  of  men  to  shirk  and  hide  under  the  pro- 
tection of  some  idea  of  fate.  And  very  often  we  hear 
ministers  trying  to  escape  responsibility  by  vague  and 
foolish  statements  that  the  truth  is  everything,  and 
that  it  ought  not  to  make  any  difference  to  a  congre- 
gation how  or  from  whom  they  hear  it.  It  is  a  latent 
f  ataUsm,  a  readiness  to  count  out  of  the  highest  oper- 
ations the  play  of  human  free  will  and  choice,  which 
lies  at  the  bottom  of  such  speeches.  The  same  reason 
which  requires  a  man  for  a  preacher  at  all  requires  as 
wise  and  strong  and  weU-furnished,  as  skilful  and  as 
eloquent  a  man  as  can  be  found  or  made.  The  duty 
of  making  yourself  acceptable  to  people,  and  winning 
by  all  manly  ways  their  confidence  in  you,  and  in  the 
truth  which  you  tell,  is  one  that  is  involved  in  the  very 
fact  of  your  being  a  preacher.  And  the  dignity  of  the 
purpose  gives  dignity  to  many  details  which  in  them- 
selves are  trivial.  The  study  of  language  and  of  ora- 
tory, which  would  belittle  you  if  they  were  merely 
undertaken  for  your  own  culture,  are  noble  when  you 
undertake  them  in  order  that  your  tongue  may  be  a 


THE  PREACHER  IN  HIS   WORK.  75 

worthier  minister  of  God's  truth ;  and  the  assiduous 
attention  to  people,  and  their  tastes  and  habits  and 
ways  of  thinking,  which  would  be  slavery  if  it  had 
no  object  besides  their  pleasure  or  your  own  re- 
pute, is  a  lofty  exercise,  if  it  has  for  its  purpose  the 
finding  out  on  which  side  of  every  man  you  can  best 
bring  to  him  the  truth.  Here  stands  a  man,  and  two 
other  men  are  watching  him.  Both  of  them  are 
studying  his  character.  Both  want  to  know  what  he 
thinks  about,  what  his  tastes  are,  how  he  spends  his 
time.  One  of  them  is  trying  to  find  how  he  can  best 
win  from  him  a  dollar  or  a  vote.  The  other  is  trying 
to  see  what  is  his  true  way  to  preach  the  Gospel  to 
that  fellow-man.  There  are  the  meanest  and  the 
noblest  relations  which  any  man  can  occupj^  towards 
his  fellow-man.  The  first  is  ignominious  beyond  de- 
scription. It  is  a  relation  too  low  for  any  man  to 
hold.  A  true  man  would  rather  starve  than  occupy 
it.  But  the  other  is  a  relation  in  which  every  man 
must  stand  who  means  to  really  preach  to  any 
brother.  It  is  but  the  effort  after  what  it  is  in  our 
feeble  power  to  attain  of  that  knowledge  of  humanity 
which  was  in  Him  who  "  knew  what  was  in  man,"  and 
who,  therefore,  "  spake  as  never  man  spake." 

It  follows  from  this  that  the  work  of  the  preacher 
and  the  pastor  really  belong  together,  and  ought  not 
to  be  separated.  I  believe  that  very  strongly.  Everj^ 
now  and  then  somebody  rises  with  a  plea  that  is  very 


76  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

familiar  and  specious.  He  says,  how  much  better  it 
would  be  if  only  there  could  be  a  classification  of 
ministers  and  duties.  Let  some  ministers  be  wholly 
preachers,  and  some  be  wholly  pastors.  Let  one  class 
visit  the  flock,  to  direct  and  comfort  them ;  and  the 
other  class  stand  in  the  pulpit.  You  will  not  go  far 
in  your  ministr}^  before  you  will  be  tempted  to  echo 
that  desire.  The  two  parts  of  a  preacher's  work  are 
always  in  rivalry.  When  you  find  that  you  can 
never  sit  down  to  study  and  write  without  the  faces 
of  the  people,  who  you  know  need  your  care,  looking 
at  you  from  the  paper ;  and  yet  you  never  can  go  out 
among  your  people  without  hearing  your  forsaken 
study  reproaching  you,  and  calling  you  home,  you 
may  easily  come  to  believe  that  it  would  be  good  in- 
deed if  you  could  be  one  or  other  of  two  things,  and 
not  both ;  either  a  preacher  or  a  pastor,  but  not  the 
two  together.  But  I  assure  you  you  are  T\Tong.  The 
two  things  are  not  two,  but  one.  There  may  be 
preachers  here  and  there  with  such  a  deep,  intense 
insight  into  the  general  humanity,  that  they  can 
speak  to  men  without  knowing  the  men  to  whom 
they  speak.  Such  preachers  are  very  rare ;  and  other 
preachers,  who  have  not  their  power,  tr\dng  to  do  it, 
are  sure  to  preach  to  some  unreal,  unhuman  man  of 
their  own  imagination.  There  are  some  pastors  here 
and  there  with  such  a  constanth^  lofty  and  spiritual 
view  of  little  things,  that  they  can  go  about  from 


THE  PREACHER  IN  HIS    WORK.  11 

house  to  house,  year  after  year,  and  deal  with  men 
and  women  at  their  common  work,  and  lift  the  men 
and  women  to  themselves,  and  never  fall  to  the  level 
of  the  men  and  women  whom  they  teach.  Such  pas- 
tors are  rare ;  and  other  men,  trying  to  do  it,  and 
never  in  more  formal  way  from  the  pulpit  treating 
truth  in  its  larger  aspects,  are  sure  to  grow  frivo- 
lous gossips  or  tiresome  machines.  The  preacher 
needs  to  be  pastor,  that  he  may  preach  to  real  men. 
The  pastor  must  be  preacher,  that  he  may  keep  the 
dignity  of  his  work  alive.  The  preacher,  who  is  not 
a  pastor,  grows  remote.  The  pastor,  who  is  not  a 
preacher,  grows  petty.  Never  be  content  to  let  men 
truthfully  say  of  you,  "  He  is  a  preacher,  but  no  pas- 
tor ;  "  or,  '^  He  is  a  pastor,  but  no  preacher."  Be  both ; 
for  you  cannot  really  be  one  unless  you  also  are  the 
other. 

Of  the  pastor's  function  considered  by  itself  there 
is,  I  think,  but  very  little  to  be  said.  I  count  of  little 
worth  all  sets  of  rules,  all  teaching  directly  on  the 
subject.  The  books  that  teach  a  pastor's  duty  except 
in  the  way  of  the  most  general  suggestion  are  almost 
worthless.  They  have  the  fault  which  belongs  to 
all  books  on  behavior,  which  are  needless  for  those 
who  do  behave  well  and  useless  for  those  who  do  not. 
The  powers  of  the  pastor's  success  are  truth  and  sym- 
pathy together.  ^'  Speaking  the  truth  in  Love,"  is 
the  golden  text  to  write  in  the  book  where  you  keep 


78  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

the  names  of  your  people,  so  that  you  may  read  it 
every  time  you  go  to  visit  them.  Sympathy  without 
truth  makes  a  plausible  pastor,  but  one  whose  hold 
on  a  parish  soon  grows  weak.  Men  feel  his  touch 
upon  them  soft  and  tender,  but  never  vigorous  and 
strong.  Truth  without  sympathy  makes  the  sort  of 
pastor  whom  people  say  that  they  respect  but  to 
whom  they  seldom  go  and  whom  they  seldom  care  to 
see  coming  to  them.  But  where  the  two  unite,  so  far 
as  the  two  unite  in  you,  I  think  there  will  be  nothing 
that  will  surprise  you  more  than  to  discover  how  cer- 
tain their  power  is.  The  man  who  has  them  cannot 
help  saying  the  right  word  at  the  right  time.  You 
go  to  some  poor  crushed  and  broken  heart ;  you  tell 
what  truth  you  know,  the  truth  of  the  ever  ready  and 
inexhaustible  forgiveness,  the  truth  of  the  unutter- 
able love,  the  truth  of  the  unbroken  hfe  of  immortal- 
ity ;  and  you  let  the  sorrow  for  that  heart's  sorrow 
which  you  truly  feel,  utter  itself  in  whatever  true  and 
simple  ways  it  will ;  then  you  come  away  sick  at  heart 
because  you  have  so  miserably  failed  j  but  by  and  hj 
you  find  that  you  have  not  failed,  that  you  really  did 
bring  elevation  and  comfort.  You  cannot  help  doing 
it  if  you  go  with  truth  and  sympathy.  This  is  the 
constant  experience  of  the  minister.  This  is  the 
ground  of  confidence  and  hope  mth  which  he  presses 
on  from  year  to  year. 

I  am  inclined  to  think,  as  I  have  already  intimated, 


THE  PREACHEB  IN  HIS    WOBK.  79 

that  the  trouble  of  much  of  our  pastoral  work  is  in 
its  pettiness.  It  is  pitched  in  too  low  a  key.  It  tries 
to  meet  the  misfortunes  of  Hfe  with  comfort  and  not 
with  inspiration^  offering  inducements  to  patience  and 
the  suggestions  of  compensation  in  this  life  or  another 
which  lies  beyond,  rather  than  imparting  that  higher 
and  stronger  tone  which  will  make  men  despise  their 
sorrows  and  bear  them  easily  in  their  search  for  truth 
and  nobleness,  and  the  release  that  comes  from  for- 
getfulness  of  self  and  devotion  to  the  needs  of  other 
people.  The  truest  help  which  one  can  render  to  a 
man  who  has  any  of  the  inevitable  burdens  of  life  to 
carry  is  not  to  take  his  burden  off  but  to_call  out  his 
best  strength  that  he  may  be  able  to  bear  it.  The  pas- 
torship of  Jesus  is  characterized  everywhere  by  its 
frankness  and  manliness.  He  meets  Nicodemus  with 
a  staggering  assertion  of  the  higher  needs  of  the 
spirit.  The  man  who  wants  the  inheritance  divided 
is  encountered  with  a  strong  rebuke  of  his  presump- 
tuous selfishness.  And  Simon  Peter  has  the  assur- 
ance of  his  forgiveness  offered  him  in  a  demand  for 
work.  All  three  of  these  instances  and  many  others 
are  richly  suggestive  of  contrasts  with  what  many  of 
the  ministers  of  Christ  would  do  in  the  same  circum- 
stances. It  is  the  utter  absence  of  sentimentality  in 
Christ's  relations  with  men  that  makes  his  tenderness 
so  exquisitely  touching.  It  is  in  the  power,  even  in 
the  effort,  to  awake  the  stronger  nature  of  mankind 


80  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

that  our  modern  pastorship  is  apt  to  be  deficient.  It 
ministers  to  women  more  than  to  men.  It  tries  to 
soothe  with  consolation  more  than  to  fire  with  ambi- 
tion or  to  sting  with  shame. 

Perhaps  there  will  be  no  better  place  than  this  for 
me  to  say  that  it  is  in  the  absence  of  the  heroic  ele- 
ment that  our  current  Christianity  most  falls  short  of 
the  Christianity  of  Gospel  times.  We  keep  stiU  the 
heroic  language,  but  does  it  not  often  suggest  strange 
incongruities  ?  Have  not  the  pictures  of  some  of  our 
hymns,  for  instance,  seemed  sometimes  strangely  out 
of  keeping  with  the  lips  that  sang  them  ?  A  row  of 
comfortable,  self-contented,  conservative  gentlemen 
and  ladies  standing  up,  for  instance,  and  singing 
"  Onward,  Christian  soldiers,  marching  as  to  war,"  or 
"  Hold  the  fort  for  I  am  coming,  Jesus  signals  still," 
reminds  us  all  the  more  of  how  unmLlitary  and  un- 
heroic  are  the  lives  they  live.  It  is  not  the  mere  dif- 
ference of  dress.  I  doubt  not  the  Christians  in  the 
Catacombs,  or  the  colliers  who  hstened  to  Whitefield 
when  he  preached  at  Bristol,  might  have  sung  hymns 
that  were  built  on  the  same  imagery,  and  nothing  in- 
congruous would  have  been  suggested.  And  yet  they 
were  as  evidently  men  of  peace  as  are  our  congrega- 
tions. But  they  were  conscious  of  and  showed  the 
true  intenseness  of  spiritual  warfare.  They  knew 
the  fight  within,  the  terrible  reality  of  the  enemy, 
the  terrible  suspense  of  the  struggle,  the  glorious  de- 


THE  PBEACHEB   IN  HIS    WORK.  81 

light  of  triumpli.  No,  it  is  the  unheroic  character  of 
modern  life  and  especially  of  modern  Christianity. 
The  life  of  Jesus  Christ  was  radical.  It  went  to  the 
deep  roots  of  things.  It  claimed  men's  noblest  and 
freest  action.  We,  if  w^e  are  His  ministers,  must 
bring  the  heroic  into  the  unheroic  life  of  men,  de- 
manding of  them  truth,  breadth,  bravery,  self-sacri- 
fice, the  freedom  from  conventionalities  and  an  eleva- 
tion to  high  standards  of  thought  and  life.  We  must 
bring  men's  life  up  to  Him  and  not  bring  Him  down 
to  men's  life.  This  is  the  Christian  pastor's  privilege 
and  duty. 

It  seems  to  me  that  a  large  part  of  the  troubles  and  ' 
mistakes  of  our  pastoral  life  come  from  our  having 
too  high  an  estimate  of  men's  present  condition  and 
too  low  an  estimate  of  their  possibility.  If  this  be  j 
true,  then  what  we  need  to  make  us  better  pastors  is 
more  of  the  Gospel  which  reveals  at  once  man's  im- 
perfect condition  and  his  infinite  hope.  _Jesus_was 
the  perfect  pastor  in  the  way  in  which  He  showed 
men  what  they  w^ere  and  what  they  might  become.  He 
never  deceived  and  never  discouraged  them.  The  con- 
tact with  His  perfect  humanity  brought  them  at  once 
shame  and  hope.  And  when  He  comes  near  to  us 
now,  when  His  Spirit  does  His  appointed  work  of 
taking  Him  and  showing  Him  to  us,  the  same  power, 
combined  of  shame  and  hope,  comes  into  our  lives. 
Let  that  be  the  model  of  our  pastorship. 


iC 


y2  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

But  to  return  more  definitely  to  preacliing^  I  think 
that  one  of  the  preliminary  considerations  about  it — 
one  characteristic  of  it  so  prominent  that  we  are  sure 
that  He  who  sent  men  out  to  preach  must  have  de- 
signed it — is  that  which  I  have  already  once  alluded 
to,  the  pleasure  that  belongs  to  it,  the  way  in  which 
it  thoroughly  interests  the  best  parts  of  the  man  who 
does  it.  I  remember,  as  I  recur  to  it,  how  much  I  have 
already  said  about  it,  and  may  have  yet  to  say ;  but 
it  is  much  upon  my  mind.  For  I  think  there  is  some- 
thing unhappy  in  the  frequency  with  which  ministers 
dwell  upon  their  work  as  if  it  were  full  of  hardships 
and  disappointments.  Every  power  of  man  which 
has  its  natural  and  legitimate  purpose  brings  two 
pleasures,  one  in  the  anticipation  and  attainment  of 
its  end,  the  other  in  its  own  exercise.  There  is  a  de- 
light in  exercising  faculties  as  well  as  in  doing  work, 
and  in  all  the  best  activities  of  men  the  two  will  go 
together.  This  is  all  true  of  preaching.  Its  highest 
joy  is  in  the  great  ambition  that  is  set  before  it,  the 
glorifying  of  the  Lord  and  the  saving  of  the  souls 
of  men.  No  other  joy  on  earth  compares  with  that. 
The  ministry  that  does  not  feel  that  joy  is  dead.  But 
in  behind  that  highest  joy,  beating  in  humble  unison 
with  it,  as  the  healthy  body  thrills  in  sympathy  with 
the  deep  thoughts  and  pure  desires  of  the  mind  and 
soul,  the  best  ministries  have  always  been  conscious 
of  another  pleasure  which  belonged  to  the  very  doing 


THE  PREACHER  IN  HIS   WORK.  83 

of  the  work  itseK.  As  we  read  the  lives  of  all  the 
most  effective  preachers  of  the  past,  or  as  we  meet 
the  men  who  are  powerful  preachers  of  the  Word  to- 
day, we  feel  how  certainly  and  how  deeply  the  very 
exercise  of  their  ministry  delights  them.  The  best 
sermons  always  seem  to  carry  the  memory  of  the  ex- 
cited spring  or  qniet  happiness,  with  which  they  are 
written  or  uttered.  The  soldier  enjoys  the  battle  as 
well  as  the  victory.  The  carpenter  enjoys  the  saw 
and  plane  as  well  as  the  prospect  of  the  full-built 
house.  When  WiLberforce  heard  of  Macaulay's  first 
offer  of  a  chance  of  public  life,  he  was  silent  for  a 
moment,  and  then  his  face  lighted  up  and  he  clapped 
his  hand  to  his  ear  and  cried,  ^'  Ah,  I  hear  that  shout 
again.  Hear !  Hear !  What  a  life  it  was  !  "  In  the 
case  of  the  preacher  this  secondary  pleasure,  if  I  may 
call  it  so,  consists  in  the  enjoyment  of  close  relation- 
ship with  fellow-men  and  in  the  orator's  delight  in 
moving  men.  The  fastidious  man  or  the  cold  man 
loses  a  great  deal  of  the  stimulus  and  unfading  fresh- 
ness of  the  ministry.  Sometimes  this  pleasure  grows 
very  keen.  I  always  remember  one  special  afternoon, 
years  ago,  when  the  light  faded  from  the  room  where 
I  was  preaching  and  the  faces  melted  together  into  a 
unit  as  of  one  impressive,  pleading  man,  and  I  felt 
them  listening  when  I  could  hardly  see  them ;  I  re- 
member this  accidental  day  as  one  of  the  times  when 
the  sense  of  the  privilege  of  having  to  do  with  people 


84  '  LECTURES   ON  PEE  ACHING. 

as  their  preacher  came  out  almost  overpoweriiigl}^ 
It  is  good  to  treasure  all  such  enjoyment  of  the  actual 
work  of  preaching.  It  bridges  over  the  times  when 
the  higher  enthusiasm  flags,  and  it  gives  a  deeper  de- 
light to  it  when  it  is  strongest. 

I  think  that  as  we  study  the  preaching  of  Jesus  we 
admire  above  almost  everything  the  way  in  which 
He  was  at  once  the  Leader  and  the  Brother  of  the 
"men  He  taught.  He  spake  as  one  having  authority 
always,  but  always  His  power  was  brought  near  to 
men  by  the  complete  way  in  which  He  made  Himself 
one  of  them,  by  the  evident  reality  with  which  He 
bore  their  sins  and  carried  their  sorrows.  So  that  by 
as  much  as  the  Son  of  God  was  above  men  in  His  na- 
ture, by  so  much  the  more  He  came  near  to  them  in 
his  sympathies  and  was  a  truer  Son  of  Man  than  any 
of  the  wonderfully  human  prophets  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  or  Ezekiel,  to  whom  the  same 
name  is  constantly  applied.  Now  when  we  compare 
the  ordinary  preacher's  life  with  that  of  Jesus,  I  think 
we  see  how  much  more  apt  he  is  to  have  kept  the 
position  of  leader  than  the  position  of  brother  of  the 
people.  At  any  rate,  what  we  miss  in  a  great  deal  of 
our  preaching  is  that  beautiful  blending  of  the  two 
whose  power  we  recognize  in  the  word  and  work  of 
Jesus.  We  are  the  leaders  of  the  people.  Woe  to 
our  preaching  if  in  any  feeble,  false  humility  we  ab- 
dicate that  place.     The  people  pass  us  by  and  pity  us 


THE  PBEACHEB  IN  HIS    WORK.  85 

if  they  see  us  standing  in.  our  pulpits  saying,  '^  We 
know  nothing  particular  about  these  things  whereof 
we  preach;  we  have  no  authority;  only  come  here 
and  we  will  tell  you  what  we  think,  and  you  shall  tell 
us  what  you  think,  and  so  perhaps  together  we  can 
strike  out  a  little  hght."  That  is  not  preaching. 
There  has  been  pulpit  talk  like  that,  and  men  have 
always  passed  it  by  and  hurried  on  to  find  some  one 
who  at  least  pretended  to  tell  them  the  will  of  God. 
No,  the  preacher  must  be  a  leader,  but  his  leadership 
must  be  bound  in  with  his  brotherhood.  It  was  as 
Man  that  Christ  led  men  to  God.  It  must  be  as  men 
that  we  carry  on  the  work  of  Christ  and  help  men's 
souls  to  Him.  This  truth  seems  to  me  to  he  at  the 
bottom  of  all  the  best  successes,  and  the  forgetfulness 
of  it  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  worst  failures  of  the 
ministry.  There  is  no  real  leadership  of  people  for  a 
preacher  or  a  pastor  except  that  which  comes  as  the 
leadership  of  the  Incarnation  came,  by  a  thorough 
entrance  into  the  lot  of  those  whom  one  would  lead. 

And  again,  the  limits  of  the  preacher's  leadership 
are  very  clear,  and  it  is  necessary  that  the  young 
minister  should  know  them.  Sometimes  a  preacher 
finds  himself — and  oftener  still,  some  foohsh  friends 
by  his  side  will  make  him  think  himself — one  of 
the  wisest  men,  perhaps  the  wisest  man  in  his  small 
circle  upon  any  of  the  ordinary  topics  of  thought, 
upon  art,  or  politics,  or  letters,  or  education.     It  is 


86  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

good  for  him  to  use  Ms  wisdom  as  it  is  for  any 
other  man.  It  is  wrong  for  liim  to  leave  his  wis- 
dom nnnsed  as  it  is  for  any  other  man.  He  may 
do  much  good  to  the  people,  he  may  indirectly  help 
his  own  peculiar  mission  by  sharing  his  knowledge 
with  them.  One  of  the  most  interesting  pages  of 
clerical  life  of  which  I  know  is  Norman  Macleod's 
account  of  his  lectures  to  the  weavers  at  Newmilns, 
on  geology.  Would  that  more  of  us  were  able 
to  follow  his  example.  All  that  is  well;  but  we 
must  know  that  there  is  nothing  in  our  quaUty  as 
preachers  that  gives  us  any  claim  to  be  authoritative 
guides  to  men  in  any  of  those  things,  neither  in  poli- 
tics, nor  in  education,  nor  in  science.  On  one  thing 
only  we  may  speak  with  authority,  and  that  is  the 
will  of  Grod.  Nor  even  in  the  details  of  religious 
thought  need  we  aspire  to  be  their  guides.  I  do  not 
want —  and  certainly  I  know  that  if  I  did  want  I  never 
should  be  able — to  make  the  people  who  listen  to  me 
accept  every  view  of  Christian  truth  which  I  utter 
before  them.  I  have  no  reason  to  beheve  that  what 
I  utter  is  clothed  with  an  infallibility.  In  much  of 
what  one  preaches  he  is  satisfied  if  men  take  home 
what  he  says  as  the  utterance  of  one  who  has  thought 
upon  the  subject  of  which  he  speaks  and  wishes  them 
to  think  and  judge.  Surely  he  does  not  declare  to 
them  his  belief  about  the  method  of  the  atonement, 
with  the  same  authority  with  which  he  bids  them  re- 


THE  PREACHER   IN  HIS    WORK.  87 

pent  of  sin,  and  warns  them  that  without  holiness  no 
man  shall  see  the  Lord.  Such  line  of  difference  every 
true  preacher  draws,  and  freely  lets  men  see  where  it 
runs.  If  you  attempt  to  claim  authority  for  all  your 
7  speculations  you  will  end  by  losing  it  for  your  most 
sure  and  solemn  declarations  of  God's  will. 

One  difficulty  of  the  preacher's  office  is  its  subjec- 
tion to  flippant  gossip,  along  with  its  exemption  from 
severe  and  healthy  criticism.  There  are  people  enough 
always  to  find  out  a  minister's  little  faults,  and  let  him 
hear  of  them ;  but  it  is  wonderful  how  he  can  go  on 
year  after  year,  without  being  once  brought  up  to  the 
judgment-seat  of  sound  intelligence,  and  hearing  what 
is  the  real  worth  of  the  words  that  he  is  saying,  and 
the  work  that  he  is  doing.  There  are  plenty  of  people 
to  do  for  him  the  office  of  the  man  whom  Philip  of 
Macedon  kept  in  his  service,  to  tell  him  every  day  be- 
fore he  gave  audience,  "  Philip,  remember  thou  art 
mortal,"  but  hardly  ever  does  he  meet  that  sound  and 
prompt  investigation  of  his  special  work  which  comes 
to  the  author  from  his  public,  or  the  lawyer  from  his 
judge.  This  makes  for  many  men  the  worst  possible 
condition  to  labor  in — a  constant  fretting  by  small 
cavils,  and  no  large  estimation  of  the  whole.  It  is 
like  standing  in  a  desultory  dropping  fire  without  be- 
ing allowed  to  plunge  into  the  battle,  and  settle  at 
once  the  question  of  life  or  death.  It  makes  su- 
premely essential  to  the  minister  that  independence 


88  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

of  men's  judgments  which  can  only  come  by  the  most 
absolute  dependence  on  the  judgment  of  the  Lord,  by 
living  "  ever  in  the  great  Taskmaster's  eye," 

I  should  have  liked  to  speak  of  one  other  danger  of 
the  preacher  from  his  work.     It  is  that  which  comes 
^  from  the  paralysis  of  great  ideas.     There  are  times 

when  the  vast  thoughts  of  God  stimulate  us  to  action. 
There  are  other  times  when  they  seem  to  take  all 
power  of  action  out  of  ns.  These  last  times  grow 
very  frequent  with  some  men,  till  you  have  the 
race  of  clerical  visionaries  who  think  vast,  dim,  vague 
thoughts,  and  do  no  work.  It  is  a  danger  of  all  ar- 
dent minds.  The  only  salvation,  if  one  finds  himself 
verging  to  it,  is  an  unsparing  rule  that  no  idea,  how- 
ever abstract,  shall  be  ever  counted  as  satisfactorily 
received  and  grasped  till  it  has  opened  to  us  its  prac- 
tical side  and  helped  us  somehow  in  our  work.  The 
spirit  of  practicalness  is  the  consecration  of  the  whole 
man,  even  the  most  ideal  and  visionary  parts  of  him, 
to  the  work  of  life. 

With  regard  to  the  second  point  of  which  I  spoke, 
the  methods  of  the  preacher's  work,  there  are  two  dif- 
ficulties which  beset  us :  one  is  the  absence  of  method, 
and  the  other  is  the  tendency  to  wrong  methods.  Let 
me  say  a  few  words  to  you  on  each  of  these. 

There  is  a  certain  air  of  spontaneousness,  a  certain 


THE  PBEACHEB   IN  HIS    WORE.  89 

dislike  of  rule  and  system  which  belongs  to  a  great 
many  ministers'  fundamental  conception  of  the  work 
of  preaching.  Rightly  studied  and  weighed,  no 
doubt,  the  teachings  of  Christ  and  of  the  whole 
New  Testament  all  look  one  way.  They  all  involve 
the  simple  truth  that  he  who  works  for  God  must 
work  with  his  best  powers ;  and  since  among  the 
effective  powers  of  man  the  powers  of  plan  and  ar- 
rangement stand  very  high,  the  whole  of  the  New 
Testament  really  impUes  that  he  who  preaches  must 
\s>y  out  the  methods  and  ways  of  preaching,  as  a  mer- 
chant or  a  soldier  lays  out  a  campaign  of  the  market 
or  the  battle-field.  But  at  the  same  time  there  are 
many  passages  in  the  New  Testament  which  seem  to 
have  in  them  something  like  a  promise  of  immediate 
inspiration.  Christ  bids  His  disciples :  ''  Settle  it, 
therefore,  in  your  hearts  not  to  meditate  before  what 
ye  shall  answer.  For  I  will  give  you  a  mouth  and 
wdsdom  which  all  your  adversaries  shall  not  be  able 
to  gainsay  nor  resist."  These  words,  and  others  like 
them,  were  spoken  indeed  to  certain  disciples,  and  in 
view  of  certain  special  emergencies  of  their  life ;  but, 
with  our  vague  unscientific  notions  about  inspiration, 
they  have  been  easily  appropriated  by  many  a  poor 
uninspired  creature  who  has  found  himself  the  sub- 
ject of  ordination ;  and  a  general  impression  of  the 
piety  of  extemporaneousness  has  spread  more  widely 


90  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

and  reached  more  thoughtful  and  intelligent  men  than 
we  suppose.  I  think^  too,  that  the  revolt  of  Protestant- 
ism against  the  minute  and  overstrained  organization 
of  the  Romish  Church  has  had  very  much  to  do  with 
the  creation  of  that  distrust  of  methodicalness  which 
prevails  so  largely  among  preachers.  However  it  has 
come  about,  the  fact  is  clear  enough.  Look  at  the 
way  in  which  the  pulpit  teaches.  I  venture  to  say 
that  there  is  nothing  so  unreasonable  in  any  other 
branch  of  teaching.  You  are  a  minister,  and  you  are 
to  instruct  these  people  in  the  truths  of  God,  to  bring 
God's  message  to  them.  All  the  vast  range  of  God's 
revelation  and  of  man's  duty  is  open  to  you.  And 
how  do  you  proceed  ?  If  you  are  like  most  ministers 
there  is  no  order,  no  progress,  no  consecutive  purpose 
in  youi'  teaching.  You  never  begin  at  the  beginning 
and  proceed  step  by  step  to  the  end  of  any  course  of 
orderly  instruction.  You  float  over  the  whole  sea  of 
truth,  and  plunge  here  and  there,  like  a  gull,  on  any 
subject  that  either  suits  your  mood,  or  that  some 
casual  and  superficial  intercourse  with  people  makes 
you  conceive  to  be  required  by  a  popular  need.  No 
other  instruction  ever  was  given  so.  No  hearer  has 
the  least  idea,  as  he  goes  to  your  church,  what  you 
will  preach  to  him  about  that  day.  It  is  hopeless  for 
him  to  try  to  get  ready  for  your  teaching.  I  am  sure 
that  I  may  say  (I  suppose  that  this  is  partly  the  rea- 
son why  as  an  Episcopalian  I  have  been  asked  to  lee- 


THE   PREACHER  IN  HIS    WORK.  91 

ture  here)  that  I  rejoice  to  see  in  mojij  churches  out- 
side our  own  that  to  which  we  owe  so  much  as  a  help 
to  the  orderliness  of  preaching^  the  observance  of  a 
church  year  with  its  commemorative  festivals,  grow- 
ing so  largely  common.  It  still  leaves  largest  liberty. 
It  h  no  bondage  within  which  any  man  is  hampered. 
But  the  great  procession  of  the  year,  sacred  to  our 
best  human  instincts  with  the  accumulated  reverence 
of  ages, — Advent,  Christmas,  Epiphany,  Good  Friday, 
Easter,  Ascension,  Whitsunday, — leads  those  who 
walk  in  it,  at  least  once  every  year,  past  all  the 
great  Christian  facts,  and,  however  careless  and  self- 
ish be  the  preacher,  will  not  leave  it  in  his  power  to 
keep  them  from  his  people.  The  Church  year,  too, 
preserves  the  personality  of  our  rehgion.  It  is  con- 
crete and  picturesque.  The  historical  Jesus  is  for- 
ever there.  It  lays  each  life  continually  down  beside 
the  perfect  life,  that  it  may  see  at  once  its  imperfec- 
tion and  its  hope. 

But  not  to  dwell  any  longer  on  this  special  instance, 
the  order  and  course  of  preaching,  the  same  absence 
of  method  is  apt  to  show  itself  everywhere  in  a 
preacher's  life.  Besides  the  reasons  for  it  which  I 
have  already  suggested,  it  comes  from  a  feeble  sense 
of  responsibility.  The  mental  and  the  moral  natures 
have  closer  connections  than  very  often  we  allow 
them,  and  traits  which  we  think  whoUy  intellectual 
are   constantly  revealing   to   us  moral   bases  upon 


92  LECTURES  ON  PEE  ACHING. 

which  they  rest.  We  talk  of  clearness,  for  instance, 
as  if  it  were  purely  a  quality  of  style,  but  clearness  in 
every  speech  addressed  to  men  comes  out  of  sym- 
pathy, which  is  a  moral  quality.  So  force  implies 
conviction.  And  so  the  truest  method  involves  con- 
scientiousness. The  intellectual  and  the  spiritual  be- 
long together.  Logical  arrangement  of  thought  has 
real  connection  with  a  sincere  desire  to  do  right.  The 
more  you  mean  to  do  all  the  right,  the  more  clearly 
your  whole  thinking  processes  will  dispose  themselves, 
and  then,  by  the  law  of  reaction,  your  orderly  think- 
ing will  make  it  easier  for  you  to  do  right.  That 
which  all  men  ought  to  remember,  it  behooves  the 
minister  more  than  all  men  not  to  forget,  how  closely 
the  mental  and  moral  natures  are  bound  together  in 
their  characters  and  destinies. 

On  this  high  ground,  and  on  a  ground  that  per- 
haps is  lower  but  still  is  sound,  I  urge  upon  you  the 
need  of  method  and  order  in  your  life  and  work.  Do 
not  be  tempted  by  the  fascination  of  spontaneousness. 
Do  not  be  misled  by  any  delusion  of  inspiration. 
The  lower  ground  is  the  support  which  well-consid- 
ered and  settled  methods  of  operation  give  to  the 
higher  powers  in  theii'  weaker  moments.  No  one 
dreads  mechanical  woodenness  in  the  ministry  more 
than  I  do.  And  yet  a  strong  wooden  structure  run- 
ning through  your  work,  a  set  of  well-framed  and 
well- join  ted  habits  about  times  and  ways  of  work, 


THE   PREACHER   IN  HIS    WORK.  93 

writing,  studying,  intercourse  with  people,  the  admin- 
istration of  charity  and  education,  and  the  propor- 
tions between  the  different  departments  of  clerical 
labor,  is  again  and  again  the  bridge  over  which  the 
minister  walks  where  the  solid  ground  of  higher 
motive  fails  him  for  a  time.  Routine  is  a  terrible 
master,  but  she  is  a  servant  whom  we  can  hardly  do 
without.  Routine  as  a  law  is  deadly.  Routine  as  a 
resource  in  the  temporary  exhaustion  of  impulse  and 
suggestion  is  often  our  salvation.  Coleridge  told  the 
story  when  he  sang,  — 

"  There  will  come  a  weary  day 
When,  overtaxed  at  length, 
Both  hope  and  love  beneath 
The  weight  give  way. 
Then  with  a  statue's  smile, 
A  statue's  strength, 
Patience,  nothing  loth, 
And  uncomplaining,  does 
The  work  of  both." 

But  patience,  while  a  strong  power,  is  not  quick- 
sighted,  and  works  in  ways  and  habits  which  have 
been  made  before. 

Of  mistakes  of  method  as  distinguished  from  absence 
of  method  in  the  ministry,  experience  has  seemed  to 
me  to  show  that  there  is  one  comprehensive  head  un- 
der which  a  wonderfully  large  proportion  of  them  all 
may  be  included.  It  is  the  passion  for  expedients.  I 
know  of  no  department  of  human  activity,  from  the 


94  LECTUBES  ON  PREACHING, 

governing  of  a  great  nation  to  the  doctoring  of  a  little 
body,  where  the  disposition  is  not  constantly  appear- 
ing to  invent  some  sudden  method  or  to  seek  some 
magical  and  concise  prescription  which  shall  obviate 
the  need  of  careful,  comprehensive  study  and  long- 
continued  application.  But  this  disposition  is  no- 
where so  strong,  I  think,  as  in  the  ministry.  The 
bringing  of  truth,  of  Christ  the  Truth,  to  man,  of  the 
whole  Christ  to  the  whole  man,  you  can  think  of  no 
work  larger  in  its  idea  than  that.  And  evidently  its 
methods  must  be  as  manifold  as  are  the  natures  with 
which  it  deals.  But  we  are  constantly  meeting  people 
who  seem  to  have  epitomized  all  the  needs  of  the 
Church,  all  the  requirements  of  the  successful  minis- 
ter, into  some  one  expedient,  some  panacea  which,  if 
it  could  only  be  applied,  would  overcome  every  ob- 
stacle and  bring  on  at  once  the  perfect  day  of  preach- 
ing. These  expedients  are  things  good  in  them- 
selves, making  no  doubt  some  very  useful  part  of  the 
great  whole ;  but  when  they  are  magnified  into  soH- 
tary  importance  and  offered  as  solutions  of  the  diffil- 
culties  that  beset  the  Gospel,  they  are  ludicrously  in- 
sufficient. Many  a  young  minister  to-day  is  staking 
his  whole  ministry  on  some  one  such  idea.  He  at- 
tributes every  defect  to  the  imperfect  apprehension 
of  that  idea  in  his  community.  He  hopes  for  every 
good  as  that  idea  comes  to  be  completely  realized. 
He  can  expect  no  good  without  it.     He  can  hardly 


THE  PREACHER  IN  HIS    WORK.  -  95 

conceive  of  any  evil  in  connection  with  it.  Perhaps 
his  favorite  idea  is  free  churches ;  a  good  idea  indeed, 
an  idea  without  which  there  could  have  been  no 
Christian  church  at  allj  an  idea  which  beyond  all 
doubt  does  represent  the  standard  of  Christianity, 
and  to  which  Christian  practice  must  some  day  re- 
turn ;  but  by  no  means  the  only  idea  of  worship,  nor 
suggesting  by  any  means  the  only  or  the  principal 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  spreading  the  Gospel.  You 
might  break  down  every  pew  door  and  aboHsh  every 
pew  tax  and  yet  wait  to  see  your  chui'ches  and  the 
kingdom  of  God  fill  themselves  full  in  vain.  An- 
other's consuming  thought  is  congregational  singing. 
As  you  listen  to  him  rushing  hither  and  thither 
shouting  the  praises  of  his  favorite  method  and  deal- 
ing dreadful  blows  at  the  four-headed  Cerberus  which 
he  detests,  you  are  almost  ready  to  believe  that  if  all 
the  people  only  could  lift  -up  their  voices  and  sing  the 
walls  of  wickedness  must  tumble  into  dust.  It  is  a 
good  and  healthy  agitation.  It  is  well  that  we  should 
break  through  the  tyranny  of  old  methods  and  reaUy 
sing  the  praises  of  the  Lord.  But  it  is  not  going  to 
do  the  work  of  casting  out  sin  and  winning  righteous- 
ness. When  the  qtirj  goes  into  battle  the  bands 
must  play,  but  they  do  not  lead  the  host.  And  so  it 
is  again  with  the  hobby  of  interdenominational  inter- 
course, of  Christian  union.  It  is  well,  and  I  would 
that  we  had  more  of  it.     But,  to  borrow  the  army 


96  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

simile  again,  no  courtesies  between  two  regiments 
ever  yet  defeated  the  other  army.  And  so  of  the 
church  sociable  which  tries  to  entice  the  passer-by  to 
the  altar  of  the  Lord  with  the  familiar  but  feeble  odor 
of  a  cup  of  tea.  And  so  with  the  children's  church ; 
one  of  the  best  and  purest  of  the  Church's  inventions 
for  her  work,  but  by  no  means  enough  to  make  a 
special  and  peculiar  feature  of  in  any  congregation. 
It  almost  always  weakens  the  preacher  for  his  preach- 
ing to  adults.  There  is  nothing  so  insignificant  that 
some  petty  minister  will  not  make  it  the  Christian 
panacea.  A  young  pastor  said  to  me  once,  "  Wher- 
ever else  I  fail,  there  is  one  point  in  which  my  minis- 
try will  be  a  success."  ^'  And  what  is  that  ? "  said  I, 
expecting  something  sweet  and  spiritual.  "  In  print- 
ing," he  replied.  He  had  devoted  himself  to  setting 
forth  elaborate  advertisements,  and  orders  of  services, 
and  Sunday-school  reward  cards,  and  most  compli- 
cated parish  records,  and  I  suppose  his  parish  is 
strewn  thick  with  those  thick-falling  leaves  unto  this 
day.  No  !  The  clerical  or  parish  hobby  is  either  the 
fancy  of  a  man  who  has  failed  to  apprehend  the  great 
work  of  the  Gospel,  or  the  refuge  of  a  man  who  has 
failed  to  do  it.  Its  evils  are  endless.  It  makes  a 
fantastic  Christianity.  It  keeps  us  battering  at  one 
point  in  the  long  citadel  of  sin  and  lets  the  enemy 
safely  concentrate  all  his  force  there  to  protect  it.  It 
robs  us  of  all  power  of  large  appeal  and  confines  the 


THE  PBEACHEB  IN  HIS    WORK.  97 

truth  wliich  we  preach  to  some  small  class  of  people. 
It  makes  us  exalt  the  means  above  the  end,  till  we 
come  to  count  the  means  precious,  whether  it  attain 
the  end  or  not.  That  is  the  death  which  many  a  par- 
ish life  has  died.     As  George  Herbert  has  it, — 

"  What  wretchedness  can  give  him  any  room 
Whose  house  is  foul  while  he  adores  his  broom?" 

But  finally,  and  worst  of  all,  the  passion  for  expedi- 
ents and  panaceas  narrows  our  standards  of  Christian 
life,  and  gives  us  false  tests  of  what  are  Christians. 
It  is  possible  to  come  to  think  that  there  can  be  no 
conversion  in  a  rented  pew ;  and  that  God  will  not 
hear  the  music  of  a  choir,  however  devoutly  it  bears 
the  praises  of  the  people  up  to  Him.  Beware  of  hob- 
bies. Fasten  yourself  to  the  centre  of  your  ministry ; 
not  to  some  point  on  its  circumference.  The  circum- 
ference must  move  when  the  centre  moves. 
^  The  escape  from  the  slavery  of  expedients  is  not  in 
finding  each  one  insufficient,  and  so  changing  it  for 
another.  The  escape  from  despotism  is  never  in  a 
mere  change  of  despots.  Some  men's  ministry  has 
been  occupied  aU  through  in  the  substitution  of 
hobby  for  hobby  year  after  year.  Their  history  is 
made  up  of  the  record  of  the  dynasties  of  successive 
expedients,  following  each  other  like  the  later  Emper- 
ors, each  murdering  his  predecessor  and  murdered  in 
his  turn.     The  escape  must  come  in  a  larger  human 


98  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

life  for  the  minister.  He  must  come  into  larger 
knowledge  of  men,  and  be  in  the  truest  and  best 
sense  a  man  of  the  world.  He  must  get  out  of  the 
merely  ecclesiastical  spirit;  that  is,  lie  must  cease 
to  think  of  the  Church  as  a  petty  institution,  to  be 
carried  on  by  fantastic  methods  of  its  own.  It  must 
seem  to  him  what  it  is,  the  type  and  pattern  of  what 
humanity  ought  to  be,  so  to  be  kept  large  enough 
that  any  man,  coming  from  any  exile  where  the 
homesickness  of  his  heart  has  been  awakened,  may 
find  his  true  and  native  place  awaiting  him.  The 
preacher  then  will  know  all  kinds  of  men,  kee])ing  his 
life  large  enough  to  enter  into  sympathy  with  them. 
Let  me  make  one  special  remark  upon  this  head. 
Apart  from  its  incidental  advantage,  to  his  style  and 
manner,  I  think  it  is  good  for  a  minister  to  do  some 
work  besides  clerical  work,  and  to  write  something 
besides  sermons.  But  he  must  do  it  as  a  minister. 
And  the  proof  of  how  large  is  his  vocation,  is  that  he 
can  do  it  and  yet  be  a  minister  in  it  all.  He  can 
write  books,  and  yet  be  not  a  literary  man  but  a  min- 
ister. He  can  help  the  government,  and  yet  be  not  a 
politician  but  a  minister.  There  are  bad  ways,  but 
there  are  also  good  ways  in  which  a  clergyman  may 
carry  his  clerical  character  with  him  wherever  he 
goes.  It  ma}^  be  to  your  discredit,  or  to  your  credit, 
that  strangers  say  of  you,  "  I  should  know  he  was  a 
minister."     For  the  best  minister  is  simply  the  fullest 


THE  PREACHER  IN  HIS    WORK.  99 

man.  You  cannot  separate  him  from  his  manhood. 
Voltaire  said  of  Louis  XIV.,  "  He  was  not  one  of  the 
greatest  men  bat  certainly  one  of  the  greatest  hings 
that  ever  hved."  It  would  not  be  possible  to  say  that 
of  any  minister.  He  who  was  one  of  the  greatest  of 
ministers  must  be  one  of  the  greatest  of  men. 

The  faults  of  a  minister's  method  are  apt  to  be  of 
the  simplest  sort ;  as  his  virtues  are  of  no  intricate  or 
complicated  kind,  but  the  primary  virtues  of  human- 
ity. I  cannot  then  pass  by  what,  after  all,  has  seemed 
to  me  to  lie  at  the  bottom  of  a  very  large  part  of  the 
clerical  failures  and  half-successes  which  I  have  wit- 
nessed. What  is  called  a  ^'  success  "  in  the  ministry 
is,  indeed,  a  curious  sort  of  phenomenon,  very  hard 
to  analyze.  Is  is  half  clay,  haK  gold.  It  is  half 
secular  and  half  religious,  and  the  two  halves  are 
mingled  so  that  it  is  impossible  to  separate  them. 
There  is  too  much  of  religious  feeling  in  our  com- 
munities to  call  a  minister  successful  unless  he  seems 
to  be  doing  a  really  spiritual  work,  and  on  the  other 
hand  there  is  too  steady  a  watch  kept  upon  economi- 
cal considerations,  to  give  the  praise  of  success  to 
mere  spiritual  devotion,  unless  it  carries  with  it  the 
signs  of  material  prosperity.  The  '•'  successful  minis- 
ter" is  a  being  of  such  mingled  qualities  that  he 
leaves  open  room  enough  for  many  men  who  are  not 
called  successful,  to  be  thoroughly  good  and  nobly 
useful  and  very  happy.     But  still  this  standard  of 


100        LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

success  has  its  advantages.  It  is  intelligible.  And 
it  brings  at  once  forward  the  simplest  of  all  causes  of 
failure,  and  shows  it  to  be  the  same  that  brings  fail- 
ure in  every  department  of  life.  That  cause  is  mere 
unfaithfulness,  the  fact  of  men's  not  doing  theii*  best 
with  the  powers  that  God  has  given  them.  I  think 
that  it  is  hard  to  believe  how  common  this  trouble, 
underlying  all  troubles,  is  in  the  minister's  life.  I 
want  to  urge  it  upon  you  very  earnestly.  You  watch 
the  career  of  some  man  who  does  not  seem  to  succeed. 
You  know  his  piety ;  you  recognize  his  intelligence ; 
you  make  all  kinds  of  elaborate  theories  about  what 
there  is  in  his  peculiar  character  that  unfits  him  for 
effectiveness ;  you  dwell  on  his  fastidiousness,  his  re- 
serve, the  wonderful  sensitiveness  of  his  nature.  You 
picture  him  to  yourself  writing  exquisite  sermons,  full 
of  thought,  which  the  people  are  too  coarse  to  compre- 
hend. And  then,  with  this  picture  of  him  in  your 
mind,  you  come  to  know  the  habits  of  his  life,  and 
all  your  fine-spun  pity  scatters  as  you  learn  that, 
whatever  other  hindrances  there  may  be,  the  hin- 
drance that  lies  uppermost  of  all  is  that  the  man  is 
not  doing  his  best.  His  work  is  at  loose  ends ;  he 
treats  his  people  with  a  neglect  with  which  no  doctor 
could  treat  his  patients  and  no  lawyer  his  clients  5  and 
he  writes  his  sermons  on  Saturday  nights.  That  last 
I  count  the  crowning  disgrace  of  a  man's  ministry.  It 
is  dishonest.     It  is  giving  but  the  last  flicker  of  the 


THE  PREACHEK   IN  HIS    WORK.  101 

week  as  it  sinks  in  its  socket,  to  those  who,  simply  to 
talk  about  it  as  a  bargain,  have  paid  for  the  full  light 
burning  at  its  brightest.  And  yet  men  boast  of  it. 
They  tell  you  in  how  short  time  they  write  their 
sermons,  and  when  you  hear  them  preach  you  only 
wonder  that  it  took  so  long.  Ah !  my  friends,  it  is 
wonderful  what  a  central  power  is  the  moral  law. 
The  primary  fact  of  duty  lies  at  the  core  of  every- 
thing. Operations  which  we  think  have  no  moral 
character,  move  by  the  power  which  is  coiled  up  in 
that  spring.  Derange  it  in  any  man,  and  his  taste 
becomes  corrupted,  and  his  intellect  suffers  distortion. 
The  first  necessity  for  the  preacher  and  the  hod-carrier 
is  the  same.  Be  faithful,  and  do  your  best  always  for 
every  congregation,  and  on  every  occasion.^ 

A  very  curious  study  in  human  nature  is  the  way 

1  An  unknown  friend  has  called  my  attention  to  these  good 
words  of  Cotton  Mather,  since  this  lecture  was  delivered.  They 
are  from  the  Ratio  Disciplince,  pp.  59  and  60. 

"  If  churches  hear  of  ministers  boasting  that  they  have  been 
in  their  studies  only  a  few  hours  on  Saturday,  or  so,  they  reckon 
that  such  persons  rather  glory  in  their  shame. 

"Sudden  sermons  they  may  sometimes  admire  from  their 
accomplished  ministers,  when  the  suddenness  has  not  been  a 
chosen  circumstance.  But  as  one  of  old,  when  it  was  objected 
against  his  public  speeches  (in  matters  of  less  moment  than  the 
salvation  of  souls),  replied,  *I  should  blush  at  the  inci^dlity  of 
treating  so  great  and  wise  a  people  with  anything  but  what 
shall  be  studied ; '  so  the  best  ministers  of  New  England  ordi- 
narily would  blush  to  address  their  flocks  without  premedi- 
tation." 


102        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

in  which  the  moral  sense  sometimes  suffers  in  connec- 
tion with  the  highest  spiritual  experiences.  A  man 
who  will  cheat  nowhere  else  will  be  a  hypocrite  in 
religion.  A  man  who  really  wants  to  convert  *his 
brethren  will  sometimes  try  to  do  it  by  preaching 
other  people's  sermons  as  if  they  were  his  own.  It  is 
partly^  I  suppose,  the  vague  sense  of  elevation  which 
seems  to  have  somewhat  enfeebled  the  hold  of  the  or- 
dinary morality  upon  a  man,  as  the  earth's  gravita- 
tion weakens  for  him  who  mounts  among  the  stars. 
And  in  some  men  it  is  that  demoralization  which 
comes  from  feeling  themselves  in  a  place  for  which 
they  are  not  fit,  burdened  with  duties  for  which  they 
have  no  capacity.  And  that,  in  political,  or  commer- 
cial, or  clerical  life,  is  the  most  demoralizing  con- 
sciousness that  a  man  can  feel. 

This  question  of  faithfulness  touches,  I  believe,  al- 
most aU  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  constraint  or  dic- 
tation which  a  minister  meets  with  from  his  people. 
I  am  apt  to  believe  that  almost  all  the  troubles  be- 
tween ministers  and  parishes  are  from  the  minister's 
folly  if  not  from  his  fault.  Not  that  there  is  not 
often  enough  blame  upon  the  other  side.  But  it 
seems  to  me  reasonable  that  the  minister,  having  an 
intenser  and  more  concentrated  interest  in  his  parish 
than  any  layman  has,  should  have  that  measure  of 
control  which,  wisely  used,  might  hinder  almost  any 
trouble  before  it  grew  vigorous  enough  to  enlist  the 


THE  PBEACHEB  IN  HIS    WORK.  103 

angry  interest  of  the  people  whose  lives  are  largely 
occupied  with  other  things.  There  are  such  things 
as  parish  quarrels.  If  I  am  right,  my  friends,  you 
will  never  have  one  in  your  parish  which  you  might 
not  have  prevented,  and  never  come  out  of  one  with- 
out injury  to  your  character  and  your  Master's  causo 
It  is  wonderful  to  me  with  what  freedom  a  minister 
is  left  to  do  his  work  in  his  own  way,  if  only  his 
people  believe  in  his  scrupulous  faithfulness.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  matter  of  preaching  old  sermons.  It 
is  not  good.  A  new  sermon,  fresh  from  the  brain, 
has  always  a  life  in  it  which  an  old  sermon,  though 
better  in  itseK,  must  lack.  The  trouble  is  in  the 
prominence  of  that  personal  element  in  preaching  of 
which  I  spoke  in  my  first  lecture.  You  may  take  the 
sermon  off  the  shelf,  and  when  you  have  brushed  the 
dust  off  the  cover  it  is  the  same  sermon  that  you 
preached  on  that  memorable  day  when  you  were  all 
afire  with  your  new  line  of  study  or  with  the  spiiitual 
zeal  that  was  burning  about  you.  You  may  repro- 
duce the  paper  but  you  cannot  reproduce  the  man, 
and  the  sermon  was  man  and  paper  together.  No,  I 
would  make  as  rare  as  possible  the  preaching  of  the 
same  sermon  to  the  same  people.  But  what  I  wanted 
to  say  was  this,  that  the  main  objection  which  the 
people  have  to  the  preaching  of  old  sermons  is  in  the 
impression  that  it  gives  them  of  unfaithfulness  and 
idleness.     Let  a  minister's  whole  life  make  any  such 


104  LECTURES  ON  P  HE  ACHING. 

suspicion  impossible  and  there  is  no  complaint.  The 
minister  in  whose  faithfulness  his  people  believe  may 
use  his  own  discretion.  He  must  not  play  any  tricks. 
He  must  not  put  old  sermons  to  new  texts.  To  put 
new  sermons  to  old  texts  is  better.  But  he  may  use 
his  judgment,  and  those  sermons,  of  which  there  is 
a  certain  class,  which  do  not  lose  but  rather  gain  by 
repetition,  he  may  repreach  again  and  again  till  they 
grow  to  be  to  people  like  their  most  cherished  hymns 
or  passages  from  some  long-loved  book  of  devotion. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  things  about  the 
preacher's  methods  of  work  is  the  way  in  which  they 
form  themselves  in  the  earliest  years  of  his  ministry, 
and  then  rule  him  with  almost  despotic  power  to  the 
end.  I  am  a  slave  to-day,  and  so  I  suppose  is  every 
minister,  to  waj^s  of  work  that  were  made  within  two 
or  three  years  after  beginning  to  preach.  The  new- 
ness of  the  occupation,  that  unexpectedness  of  every- 
thing to  which  I  alluded  when  I  began  to  speak  to 
you  this  afternoon,  opens  all  the  life,  and  makes  it 
receptive;  and  then  the  earnestness  and  fresh  en- 
thusiasm of  those  days  serves  to  set  the  habits  that  a 
man  makes  them,  to  clothe  them  with  something  that 
is  almost  sacredness,  and  to  make  them  practically 
almost  unchangeable.  They  are  the  years  when  a 
preacher  needs  to  be  very  watchful  over  his  discretion 
and  his  independence.  When  the  clay  is  in  the  bank, 
it  matters  not  so  much  who  treads  on  it.  And  when 
the  clay  is  hardened  in  the  vase,  it  may  press  close 


THE  PBEACHEB  IN  HIS    WORK.  105 

Upon  another  vase  and  yet  keep  its  own  shape.  But 
when  the  clay  is  just  setting,  and  the  shape  still  soft, 
then  is  the  time  to  guard  it  from  the  blows  or  press- 
ui*es  that  would  distort  it  forever.  Be  sure,  then, 
that  the  habits  and  methods  of  youi*  opening  ministry 
are,  fii'st  of  all,  your  own.  Let  no  respect,  however 
profound  or  merited,  for  any  hero  of  the  pulpit  make 
you  submit  yourself  to  him.  Let  your  own  nature 
freely  shape  its  own  ways.  Only  be  sure  that  those 
ways  do  really  come  oat  of  your  own  nature,  and  not 
out  of  the  merely  accidental  circumstances  of  your 
first  parish.  And  let  them  be  intelligent,  not  merely 
such  as  you  happen  into,  but  such  as  you  can  give 
good  reasons  for.  And  let  them  be  noble,  framed 
with  reference  to  the  large  ideal  and  most  sacred  pur- 
poses of  your  work,  not  with  reference  to  its  minute 
conveniences.  And  let  them  be  broad  enough  to  give 
you  room  to  grow.  It  is  with  ideas  and  methods  of 
work  as  it  is  with  houses.  To  remove  from  one  to 
another  is  wasteful  and  dispiriting ;  but  to  find  the 
one  in  which  we  have  taken  up  our  abode  unfold- 
ing new  capacity  to  accommodate  our  growing  mental 
family,  is  satisfactory  and  encouraging.  It  gives  us 
the  sense  at  once  of  settlement  and  progress.  He  is 
the  happiest  and  most  effective  old  man  whose  life 
has  been  full  of  growth,  but  free  from  revolution; 
who  is  living  still  in  the  same  thoughts  and  habits 
which  he  had  when  a  boy,  but  has  found  them  as  the 
Hebrews  sav  that  the  Israelites  found  their  clothes  in 


106  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

the  desert  during  the  forty  years,  not  merely  never 
waxing  old  upon  them,  but  growing  with  their  growth 
as  they  passed  on  from  youth  to  manhood. 

I  hope  that  I  shall  not  have  disappointed  your  ex- 
pectation in  what  I  have  said  about  the  preache/'s 
methods  by  dwelling  so  largely  upon  principles,  and 
going  so  little  into  details.  It  would  be  easy  enough 
for  any  minister  to  amuse  himself,  and  perhaps 
amuse  you,  by  recitations  from  his  diary.  But  it 
would  not  be  good.  I  want  to  make  you  know  two 
things :  first,  that  if  your  ministry  is  to  be  good  for 
anything,  it  must  be  your  ministry,  and  not  a  feeble 
echo  of  any  other  man's  5  and,  second,  that  the  Chris- 
tian ministry  is  not  the  mere  practice  of  a  set  of 
rules  and  precedents,  but  is  a  broad,  free,  fresh  meet- 
ing of  a  man  with  men,  in  such  close  contact  that  the 
Christ  who  has  entered  into  his  life  may,  through  his, 
enter  into  theirs. 

I  have  but  a  few  words  to  add  upon  the  spirit  in 
which  the  preacher  does  his  best  work.  After  what  I 
have  been  saying,  my  points  will  need  no  elaboration. 
Forgive  me  if  I  venture  to  put  them  in  the  simplest 
and  strongest  imperatives  I  can  command. 

First,  count  and  rejoice  to  count  yourself  the  ser- 
vant of  ihe  people  to  whom  you  minister.  Not  in  any 
worn-out  figure  but  in  very  truth,  call  yourself  and  be 
their  servant. 

Second,  never  allow  yourself  to  feel  equal  to  your 


THE  PEE  ACE  EB  IN  HIS    WORK.  107 

work.  If  you  ever  find  that  spirit  growing  on  you, 
be  afraid,  and  instantly  attack  your  hardest  piece  of 
work,  try  to  convert  your  toughest  infidel,  try  to 
preach  on  your  most  exacting  theme,  to  show  your- 
seK  how  unequal  to  it  all  you  are. 

Thii-d,  be  profoundly  honest.  Never  dare  to  say  in 
the  pulpit  or  in  private,  through  ardent  excitement  or 
conformity  to  what  you  know  you  are  expected  to 
say,  one  word  which  at  the  moment  when  you  say  it, 
you  do  not  believe.  It  would  cut  down  the  range  of 
what  you  say,  perhaps,  but  it  would  endow  every 
word  that  was  left  with  the  force  of  ten. 

And  last  of  all,  be  vital,  be  alive,  not  dead.  Do 
everything  that  can  keep  your  vitality  at  its  fullest. 
Even  the  physical  vitality  do  not  dare  to  disregard. 
One  of  the  most  striking  preachers  of  our  country 
seems  to  me  to  have  a  large  part  of  his  power  sim- 
ply in  his  physique,  in  the  impression  of  vitality,  in 
the  magnetism  almost  like  a  material  thing,  that 
passes  between  him  and  the  people  who  sit  before 
him.  Pray  for  and  work  for  fulness  of  life  above 
everything ;  full  red  blood  in  the  body ;  full  honesty 
and  truth  in  the  mind ;  and  the  fulness  of  a  grateful 
love  for  the  Saviour  in  your  heart.  Then,  however 
men  set  their  mark  of  failure  or  success  upon  your 
ministry,  you  cannot  fail,  you  must  succeed. 


THE   IDEA   OF   THE   SERMON. 


T  HAVE  dwelt  long  upon  the  preacher  and  his  char- 
-■-  acter  because  he  is  essential  to  the  sermon.  He 
cannot  throw  a  sermon  forth  into  the  world  as  an 
author  can  his  book,  as  an  artist  can  his  statue,  and 
let  it  live  thenceforth  a  life  wholly  independent  of 
himself.  That  is  the  reason  why  sermons  are  not  ordi- 
narily interesting  reading.  At  least  that  is  one  of  the 
reasons.  Now  and  then  you  do  find  a  volume  of  ser- 
mons which,  as  it  were,  keep  their  author  in  them,  so 
that  as  you  read  them  you  feel  him  present  in  the 
room.  But,  ordinarily,  reading  sermons  is  like  list- 
ening to  an  echo.  The  words  are  there,  but  the  per- 
sonal intonation  is  gone  out  of  them  and  there  is  an 
unreality  about  it  all.  Now  and  then  you  find  ser- 
mons which  do  not  suggest  their  ever  having  been 
preached  and  they  give  you  none  of  this  feeling. 
But  they  were  not  good  sermons,  scarcely  even  real 
sermons,  when  they  were  preached.  In  general  it  is 
true  that  the  sermon  which  is  good  to  preach  is  poor 

to  read  and  the  sermon  which  is  good  to  read  is  poor 

108 


THE  IDEA    OF  THE  SERMON.  109 

to  preach.  There  are  exceptions,  but  this  is  generally 
true. 

Whatever  is  in  the  sermon  must  be  in  the  preacher 
first;  clearness,  logicalness,  vivacity,  earnestness, 
sweetness,  and  light  must  be  personal  quahties  in 
him  before  they  are  qualities  of  thought  and  lan- 
guage in  what  he  utters  to  his  people.  If  you  have 
your  artist  you  have  only  to  supply  your  marble 
and  chisel  with  the  mere  technical  skill,  and  you  have 
your  statue.  If  you  have  your  preacher  very  little 
more  is  needed  to  set  free  the  sermon  which  is  in  him. 
In  this  lecture  and  the  next  I  want  to  speak  about  the 
sermon.  I  make  a  division  which  will  not  be  very 
precise,  but  may  be  of  some  service ;  and  shall  speak 
to-day  more  of  the  sermon  in  its  general  purpose 
and  idea,  and  next  Thursday  more  of  the  make  and 
method  of  the  sermon. 

It  seems  to  me,  then,  that  at  the  very  outset  the  defi- 
nite and  immediate  purpose  which  a  sermon  has  set 
before  it  makes  it  impossible  to  consider  it  as  a  work 
of  art,  and  every  attempt  to  consider  it  so  works  in- 
jury to  the  purpose  for  which  the  sermon  was  created. 
Many  of  the  ineffective  sermons  that  are  made  owe 
their  failure  to  a  blind  and  fruitless  effort  to  produce 
something  which  shall  be  a  work  of  art,  conforming 
to  some  type  or  pattern  which  is  not  clearly  under- 
stood but  is  supposed  to  be  essential  and  eternal. 
But  the  unreasonableness  of  this  appears  the  moment 


110        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

that  we  think  of  it.  A  sermon  exists  in  and  for  its 
purpose.  That  purpose  is  the  persuading  and  mov- 
ing of  men's  souls.  That  purpose  must  never  be  lost 
sight  of.  If  it  ever  is,  the  sermon  flags.  It  is  not  always 
on  the  surface ;  not  always  impetuous  and  eager  in  the 
discourses  of  the  settled  pastor  as  it  is  in  the  appeals  of 
the  Evangelist  who  speaks  this  once  and  this  once  only 
to  the  men  he  sees  before  him.  The  sermon  of  the 
habitual  preacher  grows  more  sober,  but  it  never  can 
lose  out  of  it  this  consciousness  of  a  purpose ;  it  never 
can  justify  itself  in  any  self-indulgence  that  will  hinder 
or  delay  that  purpose.  It  is  always  aimed  at  men. 
It  is  always  looking  in  their  faces  to  see  how  they  are 
moved.  It  knows  no  essential  and  eternal  tjrpe,  but 
its  law  for  what  it  ought  to  be  comes  from  the  needs 
and  fickle  changes  of  the  men  for  whom  it  lives.  Now 
this  is  thoroughly  inartistic.  Art  contemplates  and 
serves  the  absolute  beauty.  The  simple  work  of  art 
is  the  pure  utterance  of  beautiful  thought  in  beauti- 
ful form  without  further  purpose  than  simply  that  it 
should  be  uttered.  The  poem  or  the  statue  may  in- 
struct, inspire,  and  rebuke  men,  but  that  design,  if  it 
were  present  in  the  making  of  the  poem  or  the  statue, 
vitiated  the  purity  of  its  artistic  quality.  Ai't  knows 
nothing  of  the  tumultuous  eagerness  of  earnest  pur- 
pose. She  is  supremely  calm  and  independent  of  the 
whims  of  men.  Phidias  cast  among  a  barbarous  race 
must  carve  not  some  hideous  idol  which  shaU  stir 


THE  IDEA    OF  THE  SEBMON.  Ill 

their  coarse  blood  by  its  frantic  extravagance,  but  the 
same  serene  and  lofty  beauty  of  Athene  which  he 
would  carve  at  Athens.  If  it  wholly  fails  to  reach 
their  gross  and  blunted  senses,  that  is  no  disgrace  to 
it  as  a  work  of  art,  for  the  artistic  and  the  didactic 
are  separate  from  one  another. 

And  yet  we  find  a  constant  tendency  in  the  history 
of  preaching  to  treat  the  sermon  as  a  work  of  art.  It 
is  spoken  of  as  if  it  were  something  which  had  a  value 
in  itself.  We  hear  of  beautiful  sermons,  as  if  they 
existed  solely  on  the  ground  that  "beauty  is  its  own 
excuse  for  being."  The  age  of  the  great  French 
preachers,  the  age  of  Louis  XIY.  with  its  sermons 
preached  in  the  salons  of  critical  and  sceptical  noble- 
men, and  of  ladies  who  offered  to  their  friends  the  en- 
tertainment of  the  last  discovered  preacher,  was  full 
of  this  false  idea  of  the  sermon  as  a  work  of  art. 
And  the  soberer  Englishman,  whether  he  be  the  Puri- 
tan praising  the  painful  exposition  to  which  he  has 
just  listened,  or  the  Churchman  delighting  in  the  pol- 
ished periods  of  TiUotson  or  South,  has  his  own  way 
of  falling  into  the  same  heresy.  I  think  it  does  us 
good  to  go  back  to  the  simple  sermons  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament. I  do  not  speak  of  the  perfect  discourses  of 
our  Lord,  though  in  them  we  should  find  the  strong- 
est confirmation  of  what  I  am  now  sajdng :  but  take 
the  sermons  of  St.  Peter,  of  St.  Stephen,  of  St.  Paul, 
and  from  them  come  down  to  the  sermons  which  have 


112        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

been  great  as  sermons  ever  since.  Through  all  their 
variety  you  find  this  one  thing  constantly  true  about 
them :  they  were  all  valuable  solely  for  the  work  they 
could  accomplish.  They  were  tools,  and  not  works  of 
art.  To  turn  a  tool  into  a  work  of  art,  to  elaborate 
the  shape  and  chase  the  surface  of  the  axe  with  which 
you  are  to  hew  your  wood,  is  bad  taste ;  and  to  give 
any  impression  in  a  sermon  that  it  has  forgotten  its 
purpose  and  been  shaped  for  anything  else  than  what 
in  the  largest  extent  of  those  great  words  might  be 
described  as  saving  souls,  makes  it  offensive  to  a  truly 
good  taste  and  dull  to  the  average  man,  who  feels  an 
incongruity  which  he  cannot  define.  The  power  of\ 
the  sermons  of  the  Paulist  fathers  in  the  Romish  1 
Church  and  of  Mr.  Moody  in  Protestantism  lies  sim-/ 
ply  here :  in  the  clear  and  undisturbed  presence  or 
their  purpose ;  and  many  ministers  who  never  dream 
of  such  a  thing,  who  think  that  they  are  preaching 
purely  for  the  good  of  souls,  are  losing  the  power  out 
of  their  sermons  because  they  are  trying,  even  with- 
out knowing  it,  to  make  them  not  only  sermons,  but 
works  of  art.  There  was  an  old  word  which  I  think 
has  ceased  to  be  used.  Men  used  to  talk  of  "  sermon- 
izing." They  said  that  some  good  preacher  was  "a 
fine  sermonizer."  The  word  contained  just  this  vice  : 
it  made  the  sermon  an  achievement,  to  be  attempted 
and  enjoyed  for  itself  apart  from  anything  that  it 


THE  IDEA    OF  THE  SERMON.  113 

eould  do,  like  a  picture  or  an  oratorio,  like  the  Venus 
of  Miio  or  the  Midsummer-Night's  Dream. 

And  here  lies  the  truth  concerning  the  way  in 
which  really  high  truth  and  careful  thought  may  be 
brought  to  a  congregation.  We  hear  a  good  deal 
about  preaching  over  people's  heads.  There  is  such 
a  thing.  But  generally  it  is  not  the  character  of  the 
ammunition,  but  the  fault  of  aim,  that  makes  the 
missing  shot.  There  is  nothing  worse  for  a  preacher 
than  to  come  to  think  that  he  must  preach  down  to 
people ;  that  they  cannot  take  the  very  best  he  has  to 
give.  He  grows  to  despise  his  own  sermons,  and  the 
people  quickly  learn  to  sympathize  with  their  minis- 
ter. The  people  will  get  the  heart  out  of  the  most 
thorough  and  thoughtful  sermon,  if  only  it  really  is  a 
sermon.  Even  subtlety  of  thought,  the  tracing  of  in- 
tricate relations  of  ideas,  it  is  remarkable  how  men 
of  no  subtle  thought  will  follow  it,  if  it  is  really 
preached.  But  subtlety  which  has  delighted  in  itself, 
which  has  spun  itself  fine  for  its  own  pleasure  in  see- 
ing how  fine  it  could  be  spun,  vexes  and  throws  them 
off ;  and  they  are  right.  Never  be  afraid  to  call  upon 
your  people  to  follow  your  best  thought,  if  only  it  is 
really  trying  to  lead  them  somewhere.  The  confi- 
dence of  the  minister  in  the  people  is  at  the  bottom 
of  every  confidence  of  the  people  in  the  minister. 

What  I  have  been  saying  bears  also  on  what  we 


114  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

hear,  every  now  and  then,  from  the  days  of  the 
"Spectator"  down,  the  expression  of  a  wish  that 
moderate  ministers,  instead  of  giving  people  their 
own  moderate  thought,  woidd  recur  to  the  good 
work  which  has  been  already  done,  and  read  some 
sermon  of  one  of  the  great  masters.  There  too,  there 
is  the  "sermonizing"  idea.  The  real  sermon  idea  is 
lost.  Such  a  practice  coming  into  vogue  would 
speedily  destroy  the  pulpit's  power.  Not  merely 
would  it  be  a  confession  of  incapacity,  but  the  idea 
of  speech,  of  present  address  for  a  present  purpose, 
would  disappear.  I  do  not  think  we  could  anticipate 
any  continual  interest,  scarcely  any  perpetual  exis- 
tence for  the  preaching  work  in  case  such  an  idea  be- 
came prevalent  and  accepted. 

The  fii'st  good  consequence  of  the  emphatic  state- 
ment that  a  sermon  is  to  be  considered  solely  with 
reference  to  its  proper  purposes  will  be  in  a  new  and 
larger  freedom  for  the  preacher.  We  make  the  idea 
of  a  sermon  too  specific,  wishing  to  conform  it  to 
some  preestablished  type  of  what  a  sermon  ought  to 
be.  There  is  nothing  which  a  sermon  ought  to  be  ex- 
cept a  fit  medium  of  truth  to  men.  There  is  no  model 
of  a  sermon  so  strange  and  novel,  so  different  from 
every  pattern  upon  which  sermons  have  been  shaped 
before,  that  if  it  became  evident  to  you  that  that  was 
the  form  through  which  the  message  which  you  had 
to  tell  would  best  reach  the  men  to  whom  you  had  to 


THE  IDEA    OF  THE  SERMON.  115 

tell  it,  it  would  not  be  your  right,  nay,  be  your  duty 
to  preach  your  truth  in  that  new  form.  I  grant  that 
the  accepted  forms  of  preaching  were  shaped  origi- 
nally by  a  desire  of  utility,  and  only  gradually  as- 
sumed a  secondary  value  and  importance  for  their 
own  sakes.  That  is  the  way  in  which  every  such 
superstitious  value  of  anything  originates.  I  grant, 
therefore,  that  the  young  preacher  may  well  feel  that 
a  certain  presumption  of  advantage  belongs  to  those 
t;y^es  of  sermons  which  he  finds  in  use.  He  will  not 
wantonly  depart  from  them.  I  am  sure  that  all  hear- 
ers of  sermons  will  say :  '^  Better  the  most  abject  con- 
formity to  rule  than  departure  from  rule  for  the  mere 
sake  of  departure.  Better  the  stiif  movements  of 
imitation  than  the  fantastic  gestures  of  deliberate 
originality."  But  what  I  plead  for  is,  that  in  all 
your  desire  to  create  good  sermons  you  should  think 
no  sermon  good  that  does  not  do  its  work.  Let  the 
end  for  which  you  preach  play  freely  in  and  modify 
the  form  of  your  preaching.  He  who  is  original  for 
the  sake  of  originality  is  as  much  governed  by  the 
type  from  which  he  departs  as  is  another  man  who 
slavishly  conforms  to  it ;  but  he  who  freely  uses  the 
types  which  he  finds,  and  yet  compels  them  always  to 
bend  to  the  purposes  for  which  he  uses  them,  he  is 
their  true  master,  and  not  their  slave.  Such  original- 
ity as  that  alone  at  once  secures  the  best  effectiveness 
of  the  preacher,  and  advances  at  the  same  time  the 


i^ 


/ 


116  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

general  type  and  idea  of  the  sermon,  preserving  it 
from  monotony  and  making  it  better  and  better  from 
age  to  age. 

Now  let  me  turn  to  some  of  those  questions  affect- 
ing the  general  idea  of  what  a  sermon  ought  to  be, 
which  are  continually  recurring,  and  say  a  few  words 
on  each. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  those  questions, 
which  appears  in  many  forms,  arises  from  the  necessity 
^  ^of  which  I  have  already  so  much  spoken,  of  mingling 
'  the  elements  of  personal  influence  and  abstract  truth 
to  make  the  perfect  sermon.  There  are  some  sermons 
in  which  the  preacher  does  not  appear  at  all ;  there 
are  other  sermons  in  which  he  is  offensively  and 
crudely  prominent;  there  are  still  other  sermons 
where  he  is  hidden  and  yet  felt,  the  force  of  his 
personal  conviction  and  earnest  love  being  poured 
through  the  arguments  which  he  uses,  and  the  prom- 
ises which  he  holds  out.  Of  the  second  class  of  ser- 
mons, in  which  the  minister's  personality  is  offensively 
prominent,  the  most  striking  instance  is  what  seems 
to  me  to  have  become  rather  common  of  late,  and 
what  I  may  call  the  autobiographical  style  of  preach- 
ing. There  are  some  preachers  to  w^hom  one  might 
listen  for  a  year,  and  then  he  could  write  their  biog- 
raphy, if  it  were  worth  the  doing.  Every  truth 
they  wish  to  teach  is  illustrated  by  some  event  in 
their  own  history.     Every  change  of  character  which 


THE  IDEA   OF  THE  SEBMON.  117 

they  wish  to  urge  is  set  forth  under  the  form  in  which 
that  change  took  place  in  them.  The  story  of  how 
they  were  converted  becomes  as  familiar  to  their  con- 
gregation as  the  story  of  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul. 
It  is  the  crudest  attempt  to  blend  personality  and 
truth.  They  are  not  fused  with  one  another,  but  only 
tied  together.  It  has  a  certain  power.  It  is  wonder- 
ful how  interesting  almost  any  man  becomes  if  he 
talks  frankly  about  himself.  You  cannot  help  listen- 
ing to  the  garrulous  unfolding  of  his  histor}?-.  And . 
in  the  pulpit  no  doubt  it  gives  a  certain  vividness, 
when  a  popular  preacher  whose  people  are  already  in- 
terested in,  and  curious  about  his  personality,  after 
enforcing  some  argument,  suddenly  turns,  and  in- 
stead of  saying,  after  the  pulpit  manner,  "But  the 
objector  will  reply,"  briskly  breaks  out  with,  "  Last 
Monday  afternoon  a  man  came  into  my  study,"  or  "  A 
man  met  me  in  the  street,  and  said,  Mr.  this  or  that " 
(using  his  own  name),  "  what  do  you  make  of  this  ob- 
jection!"  It  gives  a  clear  concreteness  to  the  whole, 
and  feeds  that  curiosity  about  each  other's  ways  of 
living  out  of  which  aU  our  gossip  grows. 

The  evils  of  the  habit  are  evident  enough.  Not  to 
speak  of  its  oppressiveness  to  the  best  taste,  nor  of  the 
way  in  which  its  power  dies  out,  as  the  much-paraded 
person  of  the  minister  grows  familiar  and  unimpos- 
ing,  it  certainly  must  have  a  tendency  to  narrow  the 
suggested  range  of  Christian  truth  and  experience. 


118  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

In  parishes  where  such  strong  prominence  belongs  to 
the  preacher's  personality,  where  the  people  are  al- 
ways hearing  of  how  he  learned  this  truth  or  passed 
through  that  emotion,  all  apprehension  of  thought 
and  realization  of  experience  narrows  itself.  It  is 
expected  in  just  that  way  which  has  been  so  often 
and  so  vividly  pictured.  It  is  distrusted  if  it  comes 
in  other  forms.  The  rich  variety  and  largeness  of 
the  Christian  life  is  lost.  There  are  some  parishes 
which,  in  the  course  of  a  long  pastorate,  have  become 
but  the  colossal  repetition  of  their  minister's  person- 
ality. They  are  the  form  of  his  experience  seen 
through  a  mist,  grown  large  in  size  but  vague  and 
dim  in  outline.  Every  parishioner  is  a  weakened  rep- 
etition of  the  minister's  ideas  and  ways.  I  think 
that  what  a  minister  learns  to  rejoice  in  more  and 
more  is  the  endless  difference  of  that  Christian  life, 
which  is  yet  always  the  same.  It  shows  him  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  Christianity  as  universal  as  humanity,  a 
Christianity  in  which  the  diversity  and  unity  of  hu- 
manity might  both  be  kept.  And  any  undue  promi- 
nence of  himself  in  his  teaching  loses  the  largeness 
on  which  the  hope  of  this  variety  in  unity  depends. 

There  is  something  better  than  this.  There  is  a 
fine  and  subtle  infusion  of  a  man  into  his  work,  which 
achieves  what  this  crude  fastening  of  the  two  together 
attempts,  but  fails  to  accomplish.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  sermons  of  Robertson.     You  will  know,  from  al- 


TEE  IDEA    OF  THE  SERMON.  119 

lusions  to  them  which  I  have  already  made,  that  I 
sympathize  very  fully  with  that  high  estimate  which 
such  multitudes  of  people  have  set  upon  those  re- 
markable discourses.  I  think  that  in  all  the  best 
qualities  of  preaching  they  stand  supreme  among  the 
sermons  of  our  time.  And  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able things  about  them  is  the  way  in  which  the  per- 
sonal force  of  the  preacher,  and  the  essential  power 
of  the  truth,  are  blended  into  one  strong  impressive- 
ness.  The  personality  never  muddies  the  thought. 
I  do  not  remember  one  allusion  to  his  own  history, 
one  anecdote  of  his  own  life ;  but  they  are  his  ser- 
mons. The  thought  is  stronger  for  us  because  he  has 
thought  it.  The  feeling  is  more  vivid  because  he  has 
felt  it.  And  always  he  leads  us  to  God  by  a  way 
along  which  he  has  gone  himseK.  It  is  interesting 
to  read  along  with  the  sermons  the  stor}^  of  his  Ufe, 
to  see  what  he  was  passing  thi-ough  at  the  date  when 
this  sermon  or  that  was  preached,  and  to  watch,  as 
you  often  may,  without  any  suspicion  of  mere  fanci- 
fulness,  how  the  experience  shed  its  power  into  the 
sermon,  but  left  its  form  of  facts  outside;  how  his 
sermons  were  like  the  heaven  of  his  life,  in  which  the 
spirit  of  his  life  lived  after  it  had  cast  away  its  body. 
There  have,  indeed,  been  preachers  and  writers 
whose  utterance  of  truth  has  fallen  naturally  in  the 
forms  of  autobiography,  and  yet  who  have  been  at 
once  strong  and  broad.     You  can  gather  all  of  Lati- 


120        LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

mer's  history  out  of  his  sermons,  and  Milton  has 
given  us  a  large  part  of  his  teaching  in  connection 
with  the  events  of  his  own  life.  But  ordinarily 
that  is  true  in  literature,  and  certainly  in  preaching, 
which  is  true  in  life.  It  is  not  the  man  who  forces 
the  events  of  his  life  on  you  who  most  puts  the  spirit 
of  his  life  into  you.  The  most  unreserved  men  are 
not  the  most  influential.  A  reserved  man  who  cares 
for  truth,  and  cares  that  his  brethren  should  know  the 
truth,  who  therefore  is  always  holding  back  the  mere 
envelope  of  accident  and  circumstance  in  which  the 
truth  has  embodied  itself  to  him,  and  yet  sending 
forth  the  truth  with  all  the  clearness  and  force  which 
it  has  gathered  for  him  from  that  embodiment,  he  is 
the  best  preacher,  as  everywhere  he  is  the  most  influ- 
ential man.  Try  to  live  such  a  life,  so  full  of  events 
and  relationships  that  the  two  great  things,  the 
power  of  Christ  and  the  value  of  your  brethren's 
souls,  shall  be  tangible  and  certain  to  you ;  not  sub- 
jects of  speculation  and  belief,  but  realities  which  you 
have  seen  and  known ;  then  sink  the  shell  of  personal 
experience,  lest  it  should  hamper  the  truth  that  you 
must  utter,  and  let  the  truth  go  out  as  the  shot  goes, 
carrying  the  force  of  the  gun  with  it,  but  leaving  the 
gun  behind. 

There  is  something  beautiful  to  me  in  the  way  in 
which  the  utterance  of  the  best  part  of  a  man's  own 
life,  its  essence,  its  result,  which  the  pulpit  makes 


THE  IDEA    OF  THE  SEEMOX.  121 

possible,  and  even  tempts,  is  welcomed  by  many  men, 
who  seem  to  find  all  other  utterance  of  themselves 
impossible.  I  have  known  shy,  reserved  men,  who, 
standing  in  their  pulpits,  have  di-awn  back  before  a 
thousand  eyes  veils  that  were  sacredly  closed  when 
only  one  friend's  eyes  could  see.  You  might  talk 
with  them  a  hundred  times,  and  you  would  not  learn 
so  much  of  what  they  were  as  if  you  once  heard  them 
preach.  It  was  partly  the  impersonality  of  the  great 
congregation.  Humanity,  without  the  offense  of  in- 
dividuality, stood  there  before  them.  It  was  no  vio- 
lation of  their  loyalty  to  themselves  to  tell  their 
secret  to  mankind.  It  was  a  man  who  silenced  them. 
But  also,  besides  this,  it  was,  I  think,  that  the  sight 
of  many  waiting  faces  set  free  in  them  a  new,  clear 
knowledge  of  what  theii*  truth  or  secret  was,  un- 
snarled it  from  the  petty  circumstances  into  which  it 
had  been  entangled,  called  it  first  into  clear  conscious- 
ness, and  then  tempted  it  into  utterance  with  an  au- 
thority which  they  did  not  recognize  in  an  individual 
curiosity  demanding  the  details  of  their  Life.  Our 
race,  represented  in  a  great  assemblage,  has  more  au- 
thority and  more  beguilement  for  many  of  us  than 
the  single  man,  however  near  he  be.  And  he  who 
is  silent  before  the  interviewer  pours  out  the  very 
depths  of  his  soul  to  the  great  multitude.  He  will 
not  print  his  diary  for  the  world  to  read,  but  he  will 
tell  his  feUow-men  what  Chiist  may  be  to  them,  so 


122         LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

that  they  shall  see,  as  God  sees,  what  Christ  has  been 
to  him. 

I  think,  again,  that  this  first  trnth  of  preaching,  the 
truth  that  the  minister  enters  into  the  sermon,  touches 
upon  the  point  of  which  I  spoke  in  my  last  sermon, 
the  authority  of  the  sermon.  The  sermon  is  God's 
message  sent  by  you  to  certain  of  your  fellow-men. 
If  the  message  came  to  your  fellow-men  just  as  it 
came  from  God  it  must  be  absolutely  true  and  must 
have  absolute  authority.  If  the  fallible  messenger 
mixes  hunself  with  his  infallible  message,  the  ab- 
solute authority  of  the  message  is  in  some  degree 
qualified.  But  we  have  seen  that  the  very  idea  of 
the  sermon  implies  that  the  messenger  must  mingle 
himself  with  the  message  that  he  brings ;  and,  as  a 
mere  matter  of  fact,  we  linow  that  every  preacher  does 
declare  the  truth  from  his  own  point  of  view  and  fol- 
lows his  own  judgment,  enlightened  by  his  study  and 
his  prayer,  when  he  declares  how  the  eternal  truth 
applies  to  temporary  circumstances.  Some  things 
which  you  say  from  the  pulpit  you  know;  other 
things  are  your  speculations.  This  is  true  very 
largely  of  the  anticipations  and  prophecies  about  the 
destiny  of  the  Gospel,  about  the  relations  which  the 
Gospel  holds  to  the  circumstances  of  special  times  in 
which  ministers  indulge.  John  Wesley  used  to  say 
that  ''Infidels  know,  whether  Christians  know  it  or 
not,  that  the  giving  up  witchcraft  is  in  effect  giving 


THE  IDEA    OF  THE   SERMON.  123 

up  the  Bible."  When  we  were  children  it  used  to  be 
preached  to  us  that  the  Bible  must  stand  or  fall  with 
human  slavery.  And  now  we  hear  continually  that 
this  or  that  will  happen  to  religion  if  such  or  such  a 
theory  of  natural  science  should  be  accepted.  Such 
prophecies  are  always  bad.  Tests  which  are  not  es- 
sential and  absolute  tests  do  great  harm.  But  these 
are  instances  of  the  way  in  which  speculations,  per- 
sonal opinions,  prejudices,  if  you  will,  must  attach 
themselves  to  any  live  man's  utterance  of  the  truth. 
It  is  inevitable ;  and  what  must  be  the  result  ?  Either 
all  speculation  must  be  cut  away  and  the  sermon  be 
reduced  to  the  mere  repetition  of  indisputable  and 
undisputed  truth;  and  the  mere  primary  facts  of 
Christianity  which  alone  are  held  absolutely  "semper, 
ubique  et  ab  omnibus  "  must  make  the  sum  of  preach- 
ing ;  or  else  the  preacher  must  let  the  people  clearly 
understand  that  between  the  facts  that  are  his  message 
and  the  philosophy  of  those  facts  which  is  his  best 
and  truest  judgment  there  is  a  clear  distinction.  The 
first  come  with  the  authority  of  God's  revelation. 
The  others  come  with  what  persuasion  their  essential 
reasonableness  gives  them.  Now  the  first  method  is 
impracticable.  No  man  ever  did  it.  No  man  who 
claims  to  preach  nothing  but  the  simple  Gospel 
preaches  it  so  simply  that  it  has  not  in  it  something 
of  his  own  speculation  about  it.  The  other  method 
is  the  only  method.     Even  St.  Paul  came  to  it  in  his 


124        LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

epistles.  But  how  few  preachers  frankly  adopt  it! 
We  cover  all  we  say — our  crude  guesses,  our  igno- 
rant anticipations — with  a  certain  vague  and  unde- 
fined authority  j  and  men,  hearing  themselves  called 
on  to  believe  them  all,  and  seeing  part  of  them  to  be 
untrue,  really  believe  none  of  them  in  any  genuine  or 
hearty  way.  We  stretch  our  authority  to  try  to  make 
it  cover  so  much  that  it  grows  thin  and  will  not  de- 
cently cover  anything  at  all.  Frankness  is  what  we 
need,  frankness  to  say,  "  This  is  God's  truth,  and  this 
other  is  what  I  think."  If  we  were  frank  like  that, 
see  what  good  things  would  come.  The  minister 
would  have  room  for  intellectual  change  and  growth, 
and  not  have  to  steal  them  as  if  they  were  something  to 
which  he  had  no  right.  The  people  could  hear  many 
men  preach,  and  hear  them  differ  from  each  other,  and 
yet  not  be  bewildered  and  confounded.  And  every 
preacher,  with  the  clearly  recognized  right,  would 
have  to  accept  the  duty  of  being  a  thinker  in  the 
things  of  God. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  questions  which  meet 
us  as  we  try  to  form  an  idea  of  what  the  sermon 
ought  to  be,  is  that  suggested  by  the  occasional  or 
constant  outcry  against  the  preaching  of  Doctrine, 
and  the  call  for  practical  sermons,  or  for  what  is 
called  ^'preaching  Christ  only."  Let  me  speak  of 
this.  I  do  not  hold  that  the  outcry  is  absurd.  I  do 
not  think  that  it  is  one  to  which  the  preacher  ought 


THE  IDEA    OF  THE  SERMON.  125 

to  shut  his  ears.  It  is  a  very  blind  and  unintelligent 
cry,  no  doubt.  All  popular  outcries  are  that.  Every 
popular  movement  and  demand  has  in  general  the 
same  history.  It  begins  with  a  vague  discontent  that 
never  even  attempts  to  give  an  account  of  what  it 
means,  and  it  passes  on  into  three  different  manifes- 
tations of  itself ;  one,  an  honest  attempt  by  its  own 
adherents  to  declare  its  philosophy  and  give  an  intel- 
ligible reason  for  it ;  another,  an  effort  by  those  who 
dislike  it  to  misrepresent  and  to  defame  it;  a  third, 
the  adoption  of  its  phrases  by  people  who  care  little 
about  it  but  like  to  affect  an  interest  in  whatever  is 
uppermost.  In  this  last  stage  the  popular  movement 
becomes  a  fashionable  cant.  There  never  was  a  stir 
and  dissatisfaction,  a  dislodging  and  outreaching  of 
men^s  minds  which  did  not  show  itself  in  all  these 
forms.  This  dissatisfaction  with  what  is  caUed  doc- 
trinal preaching  appears  in  all  three.  At  the  bottom 
it  is  a  discontent  with  something  that  the  souls  of 
men  feel  to  be  wrong.  Then  comes  the  endeavor  of 
men  to  state  the  grievance,  which  is  often  very  fool- 
ishly done,  and  would,  if  carried  out,  sweep  away 
everything  like  positive  Christianity  together.  Then 
comes  the  misrepresentation  of  the  popular  demand, 
which  talks  about  it  as  if  it  all  came  of  the  spirit  of 
indifference  or  unbelief.  And  then  finally  succeeds 
that  which  is  the  lowest  degradation  to  which  anything 
which  might  be  an  intelligent  opinion  can  be  reduced, 


126  -       LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

the  affectation  which  pretends  to  be  in  horror  at  any- 
thing like  dogmatism,  and  repeats  without  meaning 
the  praises  of  an  nndogmatic  preaching.  Now  the 
minister  meets  all  of  these.  What  shall  he  do  ?  It  is 
easy  enongh  for  him  to  expose  the  illogical  reasoning, 
easy  for  him  to  see  its  misconceptions,  easy  for  him 
to  despise  its  cant,  but  it  ought  not  to  be  easy  for  him 
to  shut  his  ears  to  that  out  of  which  they  all  come, 
that  deep,  bhnd,  unintelligent  discontent  with  some- 
thing which  is  evidently  wrong.  He  must  bring  his 
intelligence  to  bear  on  that.  It  cannot  tell  what  it 
means  itself.  He  must  find  out  what  it  means,  and 
not  be  deterred  by  the  offensiveness  of  any  of  its  ex- 
hibitions from  a  careful  understanding  of  its  true 
significance. 

For  it  does  mean  something,  and  what  it  means  is 
this :  that  men  who  are  looking  for  a  law  of  life  and 
an  inspiration  of  life  are  met  by  a  theory  of  life. 
Much  of  our  preaching  is  like  delivering  lectures 
upon  medicine  to  sick  people.  The  lecture  is  true. 
The  lecture  is  interesting.  Nay,  the  truth  of  the  lec- 
ture is  important,  and  if  the  sick  man  could  learn  the 
truth  of  the  lecture  he  would  be  a  better  patient,  he 
would  take  his  medicine  more  responsibly  and  regu- 
late his  diet  more  intelligently.  But  still  the  fact  re- 
mains that  the  lecture  is  not  medicine,  and  that  to 
give  the  medicine,  not  to  deliver  the  lecture,  is  the 
preacher's  duty.     I  know  the  delusiveness  of  such  an 


THE  IDEA    OP  THE  SERMON.  127 

analogy.  Let  us  not  urge  it  too  far ;  but  let  us  own 
that  the  idea  which  has  haunted  the  religious  life  of 
man,  and  which  is  not  true,  has  had  a  serious  and 
bad  effect  on  preaching.  That  idea  is  that  the  tenure 
of  certain  truths,  and  not  the  possession  of  a  certain 
character,  is  a  saving  thing.  It  is  the  notion  that 
faith  consists  in  the  believing  of  propositions.  Let 
that  heresy  be  active  or  latent  in  a  preacher's  mind, 
and  he  inevitably  falls  into  the  vice  which  people 
complain  of  when  they  talk  about  doctrinal  preach- 
ing. He  declares  truth  for  its  own  value  and  not 
with  direct  reference  to  its  result  in  life. 

It  is  not  my  place  to  argue  here  that  the  idea  of 
faith  from  which  such  preaching  comes  is  not  the 
scriptural  idea,  not  the  idea  of  Jesus.  But  it  does 
come  within  my  region  to  point  out  the  influence  that 
a  man's  first  idea  of  saving  faith  must  have  upon 
his  whole  conception  of  a  sermon.  The  preacher  who 
thinks  that  faith  is  the  holding  of  truth  must  ever  be 
aiming  to  save  men  from  believing  error  and  to  bring 
them  to  the  knowledge  of  what  is  true.  The  man 
who  thinks  that  faith  is  personal  loyalty  must  always 
be  trying  to  bring  men  to  Christ  and  Christ  to  men. 
Which  is  the  true  idea  ?  That,  as  I  said,  it  is  not  for  me 
to  discuss.  But  I  may  beg  you  to  consider  seriously 
what  the  faith  was  that  Christ  longed  so  to  see  in  his 
disciples,  and  what  that  faith  must  be  whose  "  trial " 
or  education  St.  Peter  says  "  is  much  more  precious 


128        LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

than  of  gold  that  perishes."  Such  words  as  those 
carry  us  inevitably  into  the  realm  of  character,  which 
we  know  is  the  one  thing  in  man  which  God  values 
and  for  which  Christ  labored  and  lived  and  died. 

This  does  seem  to  me  to  make  the  truth  about  the 
preaching  of  doctrine  very  plain.  The  salvation  of 
men's  souls  from  sin,  the  renewing  and  perfecting  of 
their  characters,  is  the  great  end  of  all.  But  that  is 
done  by  Christ.  To  bring  them,  then,  to  Christ,  that 
He  may  do  it,  to  make  Christ  plain  to  them,  that  they 
may  find  Him,  this  is  the  preacher's  work.  But  I 
cannot  do  my  duty  in  making  Christ  plain  unless 
I  tell  them  of  Him  all  the  richness  that  I  know.  I 
must  keep  nothing  back.  All  that  has  come  to  me 
about  Him  from  His  Word,  all  that  has  grown  clear 
to  me  about  His  nature  or  His  methods  by  my  inward 
or  outward  experience,  all  that  He  has  told  me  of 
Himself,  becomes  part  of  the  message  that  I  must  tell 
to  those  men  whom  He  has  sent  me  to  call  home  to 
Himself.  I  will  do  this  in  its  fulness.  And  this  is 
the  preaching  of  doctrine,  positive,  distinct,  charac- 
teristic Christian  Truth.  Only,  the  truth  has  always 
character  beyond  it  as  its  ulterior  purpose.  Not  until 
I  forget  that,  and  begin  to  tell  men  about  Christ  as  if 
that  they  should  know  the  truth  about  Him,  and  not 
that  they  should  become  what  knowing  the  truth 
about  Him  would  help  them  be,  were  the  final  pur- 
pose of  my  preaching — not  until  then  do  I  begin  to 


THE  IDEA    OF   THE   SERMON.  129 

preach  doctrine  in  the  wi-ong  way  which  men  are  try- 
ing to  describe  when  they  talk  about  '' doctrinal 
preaching." 
^  The  truth  is,  no  preaching  ever  had  any  strong 
power  that  was  not  the  preaching  of  doctrine.  The 
preachers  that  have  moved  and  held  men  have  always 
preached  doctrine.  No  exhortation  to  a  good  life 
that  does  not  put  behind  it  some  truth  as  deep  as 
eternity  can  seize  and  hold  the  conscience.  Preach 
doctrine,  preach  all  the  doctrine  that  you  know,  and 
learn  forever  more  and  more ;  but  preach  it  always, 
not  that  men  may  believe  it,  but  that  men  may  be 
saved  by  believing  it.  So  it  shall  be  live,  not  dead. 
So  men  shall  rejoice  in  it  and  not  decry  it.  So  they 
shall  feed  on  it  at  your  hands  as  on  the  bread  of  life, 
solid  and  sweet,  and  claiming  for  itself  the  appetite  of 
man  which  God  made  for  it. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  idea  of  a  sermon  is 
so  properly  a  unit,  that  a  sermon  involves  of  necessity 
such  elements  in  combination,  the  absence  of  any  one 
of  which  weakens  the  sermon-nature,  that  the  ordina- 
r}^  classifications  of  sermons  are  of  little  consequence. 
We  hear  of  expository  preaching  and  topical  sermons, 
of  practical  sermons,  of  hortatory  discourses,  each  sep- 
arate species  seeming  to  stand  by  itself.  It  seems  as 
if  the  preacher  were  expected  to  determine  each  week 
what  kind  of  sermon  the  next  Sunday  was  to  enjoy  and 
set  himself  deliberately  to  produce  it.     It  may  be  weU, 


\ 


130        LECTURES  ON  PBEACHING. 

but  I  say  frankly  that  to  my  mind  the  sermon  seems  a 
unit,  and  that  no  sermon  seems  complete  that  does  not 
include  all  these  elements,  and  that  the  attempt  to  make 
a  sermon  of  one  sort  alone  mangles  the  idea  and  pro- 
duces a  one-sided  thing.  One  element  will  prepon- 
derate in  every  sermon  according  to  the  nature  of  the 
subject  that  is  treated,  and  the  structure  of  the  ser- 
mon will  vary  according  as  you  choose  to  announce 
for  it  a  topic  or  to  make  it  a  commentary  upon  some 
words  of  Christ  or  His  apostles.  But  the  mere  pre- 
ponderance of  one  element  must  not  exclude  the 
others,  and  the  difference  of  forms  does  not  really 
make  a  difference  of  sermons.  The  preaching  which 
is  wholly  exposition  men  are  apt  to  find  dull  and 
pointless.  It  is  heat  lightning  that  quivers  over 
many  topics  but  strikes  nowhere.  The  preaching 
that  is  the  discussion  of  a  topic  may  be  interesting, 
but  it  grows  unsatisfactory  because  it  does  not  fasten 
itself  to  the  authority  of  Scripture.  It  tempts  the 
preacher's  genius  and  invention,  but  is  apt  to  send 
people  away  with  a  feeling  that  they  have  heard  him 
more  than  they  have  heard  God.  The  sermon  which 
only  argues  is  almost  sure  to  argue  in  vain,  and  the 
sermon  which  only  exhorts  is  like  a  man  who  blows 
the  wood  and  coal  to  which  he  has  not  first  put  a 
light.  Either  is  incomplete  alone  ;  but  to  supplement 
each  by  the  other  in  another  sermon  is  certainly  a 
very  crude,  imperfect  way  to  meet  the  difficulty.     It 


THE  IDEA    OF  THE  SERMON.  131 

is  better  to  start  by  feeling  that  every  sermon  must 
have  a  solid  rest  on  Scripture,  and  the  pointedness 
which  comes  of  a  clear  subject,  and  the  conviction 
which  belongs  to  well-thought  argument,  and  the 
warmth  that  proceeds  from  earnest  appeal.^  I  spoke 
of  vagueness  as  the  fault  that  most  of  all  attended 
what  is  ordinarily  caUed  expository  preaching.  Be- 
sides this,  there  is  the  other  fault  of  narrow  view.  I 
know  that  fault  does  not  belong  to  it  of  necessity.  I 
know  that  the  expositor  may  refuse  to  become  the 
mere  ingenious  interpreter  of  texts  and  the  distiller 
of  partial  doctrines  out  of  one  petal  of  a  great  book 
or  argument  which  is  a  symmetrical  flower.  He  may 
insist  on  taking  in  the  purpose  of  the  whole  Epistle 
as  he  comments  upon  one  isolated  chapter.  He  may 
claim  light  from  the  manifold  radiance  of  the  whole 
New  Testament  to  let  him  see  the  meaning  of  a 
doubtful  verse.  But  we  aU  know  the  danger  of  the 
mere  expositor  of  any  book,  whether  that  book  be 
Shakespeare  or  the  Bible.  There  is  no  reason  why, 
in  the  Bible  as  in  Shakespeare,  the  minute  study  of 
parts  should  not  be  dangerous  to  the  conception  of 
the  whole.  The  same  powers  and  the  same  weak- 
nesses of  the  human  mind  are  present  in  the  sacred 
study  as  in  what  we  call  the  profane  study.  The  es- 
cape is  not  in  the  abandonment  of  minute  and  faith- 
ful study,  but  in  the  careful  preservation  of  the  larger 
purpose  and   spirit   of   the  work.      Our    literature 


132  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

abounds  iu  illustrations  of  the  difference.  Compare 
the  noble  and  vivid  pages  of  Dean  Stanley's  "Jewish 
Church  "  wit  A  the  labor  of  the  ordinary  textual  com- 
mentator, and  which  is  the  true  expositor  of  the  Old 
Testament?  The  larger  view  in  which  the  poetry 
and  the  essential  truth  reside  comes  in  the  attempt  to 
grasp  the  topic  of  the  whole.  And  so  that  preaching 
which  most  harmoniously  blends  in  the  single  sermon 
all  these  varieties  of  which  men  make  their  classifica- 
tions— the  preaching  which  is  strong  in  its  appeal  to 
authority,  wide  in  its  grasp  of  truth,  convincing  in  its 
appeal  to  reason,  and  earnest  in  its  address  to  the 
conscience  and  the  heart,  all  of  these  at  once — that 
preaching  comes  nearest  to  the  type  of  the  apostolical 
epistles,  is  the  most  complete  and  so  the  most  power- 
ful approach  of  truth  to  the  whole  man ;  and  so  is  the 
kind  of  preaching  which,  with  due  freedom  granted 
to  our  idiosyncracies,  it  is  best  for  us  aU  to  seek  and 
educate. 

There  is,  indeed,  another  classification  of  sermons 
which  often  occurs  to  me  and  which  I  think  is  not 
without  its  use.  It  belongs  not  to  the  mere  form 
which  a  sermon  takes,  but  to  the  side  on  which  it 
approaches  and  undertakes  to  convince  the  human 
mind.  Every  reahty  of  God  may  be  recognized  by  us 
in  its  beauty,  its  righteousness,  or  its  usefulness.  I 
may  see,  for  instance,  of  God's  justice,  either  the  abso- 


THE  IDEA    OF  THE  SERMON.  133 

lute  beauty  of  it,  may  stand  in  awe  before  it  as  the 
perfect  utterance  of  the  perfect  nature,  may  desire  to 
come  near  to  it  as  the  most  majestic  thing  in  the 
whole  universe,  may  love  it  solely  for  itself.  Or  I 
may  be  possessed  with  the  relations  which  it  holds  to 
my  own  moral  nature.  It  may  impress  me  not  so 
much  as  a  quality  in  God  as  a  relationship  between 
God's  life  and  mine.  It  may  fill  me  with  a  sense  of 
sin,  make  me  realize  temptation,  and  stir  the  depths 
of  moral  struggle  in  my  life.  Or,  yet  again,  I  may 
realize  that  justice  as  the  regulative  power  of  the 
universe,  see  how  conformity  to  it  means  peace  and 
prosperity  from  centre  to  circumference  of  this  vast 
order.  I  may  rejoice  in  it  not  for  what  it  is  but  for 
what  it  does.  Of  these  three  conceptions  of  God's 
justice,  one  appeals  to  the  soul  and  its  intuitions  of 
eternal  fitness,  the  second  to  the  conscience  and  its 
knowledge  of  right  and  wrong,  the  third  to  the  prac- 
tical instinct  with  its  love  of  visible  achievement. 
Now  here  we  have  the  suggestions  of  three  different 
sermons.  The  message  which  we  have  to  bring  i^ 
the  same  message,  but  we  bring  it  to  three  different 
doors  of  the  same  manhood  which  it  desires  to  enter. 
And  one  preacher  will  bring  his  message  oftenest  to 
one  door,  appealing  mostly  in  his  sermons  to  the  soul, 
"or  to  the  conscience,  or  to  the  practical  sense.  And 
one  congregation  or  one  generation  will  have  one  door 


134  LECTURES   ON  FEE  AC  RING, 

more  open  than  the  others,  its  circumstances  in  some 
way  making  it  most  approachable  upon  that  side. 
Here  is  the  free  room  for  the  personal  differences 
of  men  to  play  within  the  great  unity  of  the  sermon 
idea.  Among  the  great  French  preachers  there  has 
always  been  drawn  an  evident  distinction  correspond- 
ing very  nearly  to  this  which  I  have  defined.  Masil- 
lon  is  the  interpreter  of  the  religious  instinct,  speak- 
ing to  the  heart.  Bossuet  is  the  preacher  of  dog- 
ma, appealing  to  the  conscience.  Bourdaloue  is  the 
preacher  of  morality,  addi'essing  himself  to  reason. 
Either  of  these  sermons  may  be  of  the  expository  or 
of  the  topical  sort.  All  of  them  are  able  to  bring 
Christ  in  some  one  of  His  ofiices  to  men,  as  Priest, 
Prophet,  or  King.  Each  of  them  is  capable  of  blend- 
ing with  another.  There  is  no  such  distinction  be- 
tween them  that  we  may  not  find  a  great  sermon  here 
and  there  where  the  three  are  met,  and  where  Christ 
in  His  completeness  as  the  satisfaction  of  the  loving 
heart,  as  the  convicter  and  guide  of  the  awakened 
conscience,  and  as  the  hope  and  inspiration  of  a  la- 
boring humanity,  is  perfectly  set  forth.  VAccording 
to  the  largeness  of  your  own  Christian  life  will  be 
your  power  to  preach  that  largest  sermom.  Only  I 
beg  you  to  remember  in  what  different  ways  sermons 
may  all  be  messages  of  the  Lord.  Let  it  save  you 
from  the  monotonous  narrowness  of  one  eternally 
repeated  sermon.     And,  what  is  far  more  important, 


TRE  IDEA   OF  THE  SEEMON.  135 

let  it  keep  you  from  ever  daring  to  say  with  cruel  flip- 
pancy of  some  brother  who  brings  his  message  to  an- 
other door  of  humanity  from  you,  that  he  "  does  not 
preach  Christ." 

The  best  sermon  of  any  time  is  that  time's  best  ut- 
terance. More  than  its  most  ingenious  invention  or 
its  most  highly  organized  government,  it  declares  the 
point  which  that  time  has  reached.  So  I  think  that  a 
man's  best  sermon  is  the  best  utterance  of  his  life.  It 
embodies  and  declares, him.  If  it  is  really  his,  it  tells 
more  of  him  than  his  casual  intercom'se  with  his 
friends,  or  even  the  revelations  of  his  domestic  life. 
If  it  is  really  God's  message  through  him,  it  brings 
him  out  in  a  way  that  no  other  experience  of  his  Life 
has  power  to  do,  as  the  quaUty  of  the  trumpet  de- 
clares itseK  more  clearly  when  the  strong  man  blows 
a  blast  for  battle  through  it  than  when  a  child  whis- 
pers into  it  in  play.  Remember  this,  experience  it 
in  yourself,  and  then,  when  you  hear  your  brother 
preach,  honor  the  work  that  he  is  doing  and  hsten  as 
reverently  as  you  can  to  hear  through  him  some  voice 
of  God.  They  say  that  brother  ministers  make  the 
most  critical  and  least  responsive  hearers.  I  have  not 
found  them  so.  I  have  found  them  always  fullest  of 
sympathy.  It  would  be  much  to  their  discredit  and 
excite  serious  suspicions  of  their  work  if  their  mere 
familiarity  with  its  details  made  them  less  ready  to 
feel  its  spirit  and  to  submit  to  its  power.     It  is  not 


136        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

SO.     Do  not  begin  by  thinking  that  it  is  so,  and  you 
will  not  find  it  so. 

I  should  like  to  devote  part  of  what  time  remains 
to-day  to  some  suggestions  about  the  true  subjects  of 
sermons.  I  used  a  few  minutes  ago  the  phrase 
"preaching  Christ";  and,  without  cant,  it  is  Christ 
that  we  are  to  preach.  But  what  is  Christ  ?  "  The 
saving  power  of  the  world,''  we  say.  Where  is  His 
power,  then,  to  reach?  Wherever  men  are  wrong; 
wherever  men  are  capable  of  being  better ;  wherever 
His  authority  and  love  can  make  them  better.  Wher- 
ever the  abundance  of  sin  has  gone  there  the  abun- 
dance of  grace  must  go.  There  you  and  I,  as  ministers 
of  grace,  are  bound  to  carry  it.  I  confess  that  at  the 
very  first  statement  of  it  this  idea  of  Christ  opens' 
to  me  a  range  of  the  subjects,  with  which  it  is  the 
preacher's  duty  and  right  to  deal,  which  seems  to  have 
no  limit. 

But  let  us  go  more  into  particulars.  We  hear  to- 
day a  great  deal  about  how  desirable  it  is  that  the 
pulpit,  partly  because  it  is,  and  partly  that  it  may 
more  fully  be,  a  power,  should  deal  more  directly 
than  it  does  with  the  special  conditions  of  the  time, 
with  the  special  vices  and  the  special  needs  of  the 
days  in  which  we  live.  It  is  urged  that  we  ought  to 
hear  more  often  than  we  do  now  from  our  preachers 
concerning  the  right  use  of  wealth,  concerning  the 
extravagance   of   society,   concerning  impurity   and 


THE  IDEA    OF   THE   SEEMON.  137 

licentiousness,  concerning  the  prevalent  lack  of  thor- 
oughness in  our  hurried  life,  concerning  political  cor- 
ruption and  misrule.  I  believe  the  claim  is  absolutely 
right.  I  believe  no  powerful  pulpit  ever  held  aloof 
from  the  moral  life  of  the  community  it  lived  in,  as 
the  practice  of  many  preachers,  and  the  theory  of 
some,  would  make  our  pulpit  separate  itself  and  con- 
fine its  message  to  what  are  falsely  discriminated  as 
spiritual  things.  But  with  regard  to  this  interest  of 
the  pulpit  in  the  moral  conditions  of  the  day,  while  I 
most  heartily  and  even  enthusiastically  assert  its  ne- 
cessity, I  want  to  make  one  or  two  suggestions.  The 
first  is,  that  nowhere  more  than  here  ought  the  per- 
sonal differences  of  ministers  to  be  regarded.  Some 
men's  minds  work  abstractly,  and  others  work  con- 
cretety.  One  man  sees  sin  as  an  awful,  all-pervading 
spiritual  presence ;  another  cannot  recognize  sin  un- 
less he  sees  it  incarnated  in  some  special  vicious  act, 
which  some  man  is  doing  here  in  his  own  town.  One 
man  owns  hohness  as  an  unseen  spirit ;  to  another, 
holiness  is  vague,  but  good  deeds  strike  his  enthusi- 
asm and  stii*  him  to  delight  and  imitation.  Now, 
neither  of  these  men  must  ask  the  other  man  to 
preach  just  in  his  way.  The  first  man  must  not  call 
the  second  a  "  mere  morahst " ;  the  second  must  not 
answer  back  by  calling  his  accuser  a  pietist.  Grant- 
ing that  the  preacher  must  attack  the  special  sins 
around  him,  it  is  not  true  that  every  preacher,  be  the 


138  LEG  TUBES   ON  PEE  ACHING.       * 

nature  of  his  genius  what  it  may,  must  be  goaded 
and  driven  to  it.  It  is  good  for  us  that  there  should 
be  some  men  to  preach,  as  it  would  not  be  well  that 
all  men  should  preach,  of  truth  in  its  pure,  invariable 
essence,  and  of  duty  in  its  primary  idea,  as  it  issues  a 
yet  undivided  stream  from  the  fountain  of  the  will  of 
God. 

But  again,  the  method  in  which  the  pulpit  ought  to 
approach  the  topics  of  the  time  is  even  more  impor- 
tant. It  seems  to  me  to  be  involved,  if  we  can  find  it 
there,  in  the  perfectly  commonplace  and  familiar  state- 
ment that  the  visible,  moral  conditions  of  any  hfe,  or 
any  age,  are  only  symptoms  of  spiritual  conditions 
which  are  the  essential  thing.  But  what  is  the  mean- 
ing and  value  of  a  symptom?  Are  there  not  two? 
A  symptom  is  valuable,  first,  as  a  sign  and  test  of  in- 
ward processes  which  it  is  impossible  to  observe  di- 
rectly, and  it  has  a  secondary  value  under  the  law  of 
reaction,  by  which  a  wise  restraint  applied  to  the  re- 
sult may  often  tend  to  weaken  and  help  destroy  the 
cause.  How,  then,  are  symptoms  to  be  treated  ?  Al- 
ways with  reference  to  the  unseen  conditions  which 
they  manifest.  They  are  to  be  examined  as  tests  of 
what  these  conditions  are,  and  they  are  to  be  acted 
upon,  not  for  themselves,  but  in  the  hope  of  reach- 
ing those  conditions  in  behind  them.  Apply  all  this. 
You  and  I  are  preachers  in  the  midst  of  a  corrupt 
community.     All    kinds    of    evil    practices   are   rife 


THE  IDEA    OF  THE  SEBMON.  139 

around  us.  We  know — it  is  the  first  truth  of  the  re- 
ligion which  we  preach — that  these  evil  practices  are 
not  the  real  essential  evil.  It  is  the  heart  estranged 
from  God,  the  soul  gone  wrong,  the  unseen  springs 
of  manhood  out  of  order,  upon  which  our  eye  is  al- 
ways fastened,  and  to  which  alone  we  know  the 
remedy  can  be  applied.  What  have  we,  then,  to  do 
with  these  evil  practices,  which  we  see  only  as  the 
outward  and  visible  signs  of  an  inward  and  spiritual  . 
disgrace?  Just  what  I  said  above:  First,  honestly 
treat  them  as  tests ;  honestly  own  that,  so  long  as 
these  exist,  and  wherever  these  exist,  the  spmtual 
condition  is  not  right  5  frankly  admit  of  any  man, 
whatever  his  professions  of  emotional  experience, 
whatever  he  believes,  whatever  he  "  feels,"  that  if  he 
does  bad  things  he  is  not  a  good  man.  So  cordially 
put  the  spiritual  processes  of  which  you  preach  within 
the  judgment  of  all  men  who  know  a  good  life  from  a 
bad  one.  And  in  the  second  place  strike  at  the  symp-  ] 
tom  always  for  the  sake  of  the  disease.  Aim  at  all 
kinds  of  vicious  acts.  Rebuke  dishonesty,  licentious- 
ness, drunkenness,  cruelty,  extravagance,  but  always 
strike  in  the  interest  of  the  soul  to  wliich  you  are  a 
messenger,  of  which  your  Master  has  given  you  part 
of  the  care.  Never  let  men  feel  that  you  and  your 
gospel  would  be  satisfied  with  mere  decency,  with  the 
putting  down  of  all  vicious  life  that  left  the  vicious 
character  still  strong  behind.     Surely  such  a  protest- 


140  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

against  vice  as  this  ouglit  to  be  far  more  earnest, 
more  uncompromising,  more  self-sacrificing  than  one 
that  worked  on  lower  motives  and  took  shorter  views. 
It  can  make  no  concessions.  It  strikes  at  all  vices 
alike.  It  will  not  merely  try  to  exchange  one  vice 
for  another.  It  will  hate  vices  more  deeply  in  pro- 
portion as  it  realizes  the  depth  of  sin. 

Do  not  these  two  methods  of  dealing  with  all 
symptoms  describe  the  true  attitude  of  the  Christian 
preacher  toward  the  evident  vicious  practices  by 
which  he  is  surrounded  ?  Conceiving  of  them  thus, 
he  is  neither  the  abstract  religionist  devoted  to  the 
fostering  of  certain  spiritual  conditions,  heedless  of 
how  they  show  their  worth  or  worthlessness  in  the 
moral  life  which  they  produce ;  nor  is  he  the  enlight- 
ened economist,  weighing  with  anxious  heart  the  evil 
of  sins,  but  knowing  nothing  of  the  sinfulness  of 
sin  from  which  they  come.  He  is  the  messenger  of 
Christ  to  the  soul  of  man  always.  His  sermon  about 
temperance,  or  the  late  election,  or  the  wickedness  of 
oppression,  is  not  an  exception,  an  intrusion  in  the 
current  of  that  preaching  which  is  always  testifying 
of  the  spiritual  salvation.  He  is  ready  to  speak  on 
any  topic  of  the  day,  but  his  sermon  is  not  likely  to 
be  mistaken  for  an  article  from  some  daily  news- 
paper. It  looks  at  the  topic  from  a  loftier  height, 
traces  the  trouble  to  a  deeper  source,  and  is  not  satis- 
fied except  with  a  more  thorough  cure. 


THE  IDEA    OF  THE  SERMON,  141 

I  do  not  know  of  any  other  principles  than  these 
which  can  be  applied  to  the  somewhat  disputed  ques- 
tion of  political  preaching.  These  seem  to  me  suffi- 
cient. I  despise,  and  call  upon  you  to  despise,  all  the 
weak 'assertions  that  a  minister  must  not  preach  poli- 
tics because  he  will  injure  his  influence  if  he  does,  or 
because  it  is  unworthy  of  his  sacred  office.  The  in- 
fluence that  needs  such  watching  may  well  be  allowed 
to  die,  and  the  more  sacred  the  preacher's  office  is 
the  more  he  is  bound  to  care  for  all  the  interests  of 
every  child  of  God.  But  apply  the  principles  which 
I  laid  down,  and  I  think  we  have  a  better  rule.  See 
in  the  political  condition  the  indication  of  the  nation's 
spiritual  state,  and  aim  in  all  you  say  about  public 
affairs,  not  simply  at  securing  order  and  peace,  but 
at  making  good  men,  who  shall  constitute  a  "holy 
nation."  The  first  result  of  the  application  of  these 
principles  will  be  that  only  a  true  moral  issue  will 
provoke  your  utterance.  You  will  not  turn  the  pul- 
pit into  a  place  whence  you  can  throw  out  your  little 
scheme  for  settling  a  party  quarrel  or  securing  a  parfy 
triumph.  But  when  some  clear  question  of  right  and 
wrong  presents  itself,  and  men  with  some  strong  pas- 
sion or  sordid  interest  are  going  wrong,  then  your 
sermon  is  a  poor,  untimely  thing  if  it  deals  only  with 
the  abstractions  of  eternity,  and  has  no  word  to  help 
the  men  who  are  dizzied  with  the  whirl  and  blinded 
with  the  darkness  of  to-day.     It  was  good  to  be  a 


142        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

minister  during  the  war  of  the  Rebellion.  A  clear, 
strong  moral  issue  stood  out  plain,  and  the  preacher 
had  his  duty  as  sharply  marked  as  the  soldiers.  That 
is  not  the  case  in  the  same  clear  way  now.  It  will 
not  ordinarily  be  so.  But  still,  the  ordinary  talk 
about  ministers  not  having  any  power  in  politics  is 
not  true.  In  a  land  like  ours,  where  the  tone  of  the 
people  is  of  vast  value  in  public  affau's,  the  preachers 
who  have  so  much  to  do  in  the  creation  of  the  popu- 
lar tone  must  always  have  their  part  in  politics. 

I  close  this  lecture  with  three  suggestions,  on  which 
I  had  meant  to  dweU  at  large,  but  I  have  used  up  aU 
my  time. 

You  never  can  make  a  sermon  what  it  ought  to  be 
if  you  consider  it  alone.  The  service  that  accom- 
panies it,  the  prayer  and  praise,  must  have  their  in- 
fluence upon4t. 

The  sermon  must  never  set  a  standard  which  it  is 
not  reaUy  meant  that  men  should  try  to  realize  in  life. 

No  sermon  to  one's  own  people  can  ever  be  con- 
ceived as  if  it  were  the  only  one.  It  must  be  part  of 
a  long  culture,  working  with  aU  the  others. 

And  yet,  in  spite  of  all  these  definitions  and  sug- 
gestions, I  beg  you  to  go  away  believing  that  the  idea 
of  the  sermon  is  not  a  comphcated,  but  a  very  simple 
thing. 


THE  MAKING  OF   THE   SERMON. 


X  AM  to  speak  to  you  to-day  about  the  making  of  a 
-^  sermon,  and  if  you  compare  their  titles  you  will 
see  in  what  relation  this  lecture  and  the  last  stand  to 
each  other,  for  the  make  of  a  sermon  must  always 
be  completely  dependent  upon  the  idea  of  a  sermon.  - 
The  idea  is  perfectly  supreme.  It  is  the  formative 
power  to  which  all  accidents  must  bow.  If  any  rule 
of  the  composition  or  form  contradicts  the  idea,  it  is 
rebellious  and  must  be  sacrificed  without  a  scruple. 
I  have  heard  sermons  where  it  was  evident  that  some 
upstart  rule  of  form  was  in  rebellion  against  the  essen- 
tial idea,  and  the  idea  was  not  strong  enough  to  put 
the  rebellion  down,  and  the  result  was  that  the  ser- 
mon, like  a  country  in  the  tumult  of  rebellion,  had 
neither  peace  nor  power.  Wliat  I  say  to-day,  then, 
is  in  subordination  to  what  I  said  before.  Any  law  of 
execution  which  I  may  lay  down  that  is  inconsistent  jc 
with  the  idea  and  purpose  of  preaching  is  an  intruder 
and  must  '»  thrust  aside, 
f  The  elements  which  determine  the  make  of  any  par-  A 

143 


144        LECTURES   ON  FREACHIXG. 

ticular  sermon  are  three :  the  preacher,  the  material,  ] 
and  the  audience ;  just  as  the  character  of  any  battle 
is  determined  by  three  elements :  the  gun  (including 
the  gunner),  the  ammunition,  and  the  fortress  against 
which  the  attack  is  made.'^  The  reason  why  a  sermon 
preached  last  Sunday  in*4he  Church  of  St.  John  Lat- 
eran  at  Rome  differed  from  the  sermon  preached  in 
the  First  Congregational  Church  of  New  Haven  must 
have  been  partly  that  the  preacher  was  a  different 
sort  of  man,  partly  that  the  truth  which  he  wanted 
to  preach  was  different,  partly  that  the  man  he  wished 
to  touch  and  influence  was  different,  at  least  in  his 
conception.  Make  these  three  elements  exactly  alike, 
and  all  sermons  must  be  perfectly  identical.  It  is  be- 
cause these  three  elements  are  never  exactly  the  same, 
and  yet  there  always  is  a  true  resemblance,  that  we 
have  all  sermons  unlike  one  another  and  yet  a  certain 
similarity  running  through  them  all.  No  two  men 
are  precisely  similar,  or  think  of  truth  alike,  or  see 
the  men  to  whom  they  speak  in  the  same  light.  Con- 
sequently the  make  of  every  man's  sermon  must  be 
different  from  the  make  of  every  other  man's.  Nay, 
we  may  carry  this  farther.  No  hve  man  at  any  one  mo- 
ment is  just  the  same  as  himself  at  any  other  moment, 
nor  does  he  see  truth  always  alike,  nor  do  men  always 
look  to  him  the  same ;  and  therefore  in  his  sermons 
there  must  be  the  same  general  identity  combined 
with  perpetual  variety  which  there  is  in  his  life.     His 


THE  MAKING    OF   THE   SERMON.  145 

sermons  will  be  all  alike  and  yet  unlike  each  other. 
And  the  making  of  every  sermon,  while  it  may  follow 
the  same  general  rules,  t^tJI  be  a  fresh  and  vital  pro- 
cess, with  the  zest  and  freedom  of  novelty  about  it. 
This  is  the  first  thing  that  I  wish  to  say.  Establish 
this  truth  in  your  minds  and  then  independence 
comes.  Then  you  can  stand  in  the  right  attitude  to 
look  at  rules  of  sermon-making  which  come  out  of 
other  men's  experience.  You  can  take  them  as  help- 
ful friends  and  not  as  arrogant  masters.  I  wish  that 
not  merety  in  sermon- writing  but  in  all  of  life  we 
could  all  come  to  understand  that  independence  and 
the  refusal  to  imitate  and  repeat  other  people's  lives 
may  come  from  true  modesty  as  well  as  from  pride. 
To  be  independent  of  man's  dictation  is  simply  to  de- 
clare that  we  must  live  the  special  life  which  God  has 
marked  out  for  us  and  which  He  has  indicated  in  the 
special  powers  which  we  discover  in  ourselves.  We 
are  fit  for  no  other  life.  There  can  be  nothing  more 
modest  than  that.  It  is  not  pride  when  the  beech-tree 
refuses  to  copy  the  oak.  He  knows  his  limitations. 
The  only  chance  of  any  healthy  life  for  him  is  to  be 
as  full  a  beech-tree  as  he  can.  Apply  all  that,  and 
out  of  sheer  modesty  refuse  to  try  to  be  any  kind  of 
preacher  which  God  did  not  make  you  to  be. 

The  lack  of  flexibility  in  the  preacher,  resulting  in 
the  lack  of  variety  in  the  sermon,  has  very  much  to 
do  with  our  imperfect  education.     The  true  result  of 


146  LECTUBES  ON  PREACHING. 

education  is  to  develop  in  the  individual  that  of  which 
I  have  been  speaking,  the  clear  consciousness  of  iden- 
tity, together  with  a  wide  range  of  variety.  The  really 
educated  man  will  be  always  distinctly  himself  and 
yet  never  precisely  the  same  that  he  was  at  any  other 
moment.  His  personality  will  be  trained  both  in  the 
persistency  of  its  central  stock  and  in  its  susceptibility 
and  responsiveness  to  manifold  impressions.  He  will 
have  at  once  a  stronger  stand  and  a  wider  play  of 
character.  But  an  uneducated  man  will  be  either 
monotonously  and  doggedly  the  same,  or  else  full  of 
fickle  alteration.  The  defects  of  our  education  are 
seen  in  the  way  in  which  it  sometimes  produces  the 
narrow  and  obstinate  specialist,  sometimes  the  vague 
and  feeble  amateur  in  many  works,  but  not  often  the 
strong  man  who  has  at  once  clear  individuality  and 
wide  range  of  sympathy  and  action.  This  is  the 
kind  of  man  that  the  preacher  above  all  ought  to  be. 
Education  alone,  thorough  education,  nothing  but 
true,  wise,  devoted  study,  can  make  him  so.  Educa- 
tion alone  gives  a  man  at  once  a  good  stand  and  a 
good  outlook.  It  is  the  Frenchman's  rule  for  fen- 
cing, "  Bon  pied,  bon  ceil,"  a  good  foot  and  a  good  eye. 
As  I  begin  to  speak  to  you  about  literary  style  and 
homiletical  construction,  I  cannot  help  once  more 
urging  upon  you  the  need  of  hard  and  manly  study  j 
not  simply  the  study  of  language  and  style  itself,  but 
study  in  its  broader  sense,  the  study  of  truth,  of  his- 


THE  MAKING   OF  THE  SEBMON.  147 

tory,  of  philosophy  J  for  no  man  can  have  a  richly 
stored  mind  without  its  influencing  the  style  in  which 
he  writes  and  speaks,  making  it  at  once  thoroughly 
his  own,  and  yet  giving  it  variety  and  saving  it  from 
monotony.  I  suppose  the  power  of  an  uneducated 
man  like  Mr.  Moody  is  doing  something  to  discredit 
the  necessity  of  study  among  ministers  and  to  tempt 
men  to  rely  upon  spontaneousness  and  inspiration.  I 
honor  Mr.  Moody,  and  rejoice  in  much  of  the  work 
that  he  is  doing,  but  if  his  success  had  really  this 
effect  it  would  be  a  very  serious  deduction  from  its 
value.  When  you  see  such  a  man,  you  are  to  con- 
sider both  his  exceptionalness  and  his  limitations. 
In  some  respects  he  is  a  very  remarkable  and  unusual 
man,  and  therefore  not  a  man  out  of  whom  ordinary 
men  can  make  a  rule.  And  his  work,  valuable  as  it 
is,  stops  short  at  a  clear  line.  He  leaves  undone 
what  nothing  but  an  educated  ministry  can  do,  and 
he  who  is  most  filled  with  thankfulness  and  admi- 
ration at  that  man's  career  ought  to  go  the  more 
earnestly  to  his  books  to  try  to  be  such  a  preacher 
as  can  help  fulfil  the  work  which  the  great  revivalist 
begins. 

Every  preacher's  sermon  style,  then,  ought  to  be 
his  own;  that  is  the  first  principle  of  sermon-mak- 
ing. "  The  style  is  the  man,"  said  Buff  on.  Only  we 
must  remember  that  the  man  is  not  something  in- 
variable.    He   is   capable   of   improvement.     He   is 


148  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

something  different  when  he  is  filled  with  knowl- 
edge and  affection  and  enthusiasm,  from  what  he 
was  in  his  first  emptiness.  The  practical  conclusion, 
then,  that  will  come  from  our  first  principle  will  not 
be  simply  that  every  preacher  is  to  accept  himseK 
just  as  he  finds  himself,  and  hope  for  nothing  better ; 
fbut  rather  this,  that  style  is  capable  of  indefinite  cul- 
Itivation,  only  that  its  main  cultivation  must  come 
f  through  the  cultivation  of  the  man ;  not  by  mere  crit- 
ical discipline  of  language,  which  at  the  best  can  only 
produce  correctness,  but  by  lifting  the  whole  man  to 
a  more  generous  and  exalted  life,  which  is  the  only 
thing  that  can  make  a  style  truly  noble.  I  think, 
indeed,  that  the  question  as  to  wherein  lies  the 
power  of  a  sermon  style  corresponds  very  largely 
with  the  question  about  the  inspiration  of  the  Script- 
ures. Various  ideas  have  prevailed  about  the  point 
in  which  was  lodged  that  quality  of  the  Bible  which 
makes  us  separate  it  from  other  books  and  talk  about 
it  as  inspired.  One  idea  of  inspiration  puts  it  in  the 
language,  and  supposes  each  word  to  be  a  dictation  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Another  idea  puts  it  in  the  writer, 
and  supposes,  with  a  profounder  philosophy,  that  the 
power  of  exalted  and  truthful  utterance  was  a  truth- 
ful and  exalted  soul.  Another  idea  puts  it  in  the  ma- 
terial. The  histor}^  itself  was  full  of  God,  and  when 
men  wrote  that  God-filled  history  their  writings  were 
different  from  other  men's,  more  full  of  the  divine  at- 
mosphere, because  of  the  strange  divine  character  of  the 


THE  MAKING    OF  THE  SERMON.  149 

things  they  wrote  about.  And  so  the  sermon  comes 
forth  peculiar.  Wherein  does  its  peculiarity  reside  ? 
Is  it  that  a  certain  language,  certain  forms  of  speech, 
belong  there  which  do  not  belong  to  other  literature  ? 
Is  it  that  the  sermon- wi'iter  is  in  a  condition  and  an 
attitude  that  no  other  man  ever  quite  assumes  ?  Is  it 
that  the  subjects  with  which  the  sermon  deals  are 
more  solemn,  and  more  touching,  more  divine  than 
any  others  ?  No  doubt  all  three  ideas  are  true  in  their 
degrees,  but  no  doubt,  also,  he  who  looks  to  the  deepest 
truth  in  the  matter  will  get  the  deeper  power.  He 
w^ho  aspires  to  the  strength  of  truth  and  character 
will  be  a  stronger  man  than  he  who  tries  to  prevail 
by  the  finish  and  completeness  of  his  language. 

The  history  of  a  particular  sermon  begins  with  the 
selection  of  a  topic.  Ordinarily,  except  in  purely  ex- 
pository preaching,  that  comes  before  the  selection 
of  a  text.  And  the  ease  and  readiness  of  this  selec- 
tion depend  upon  the  richness  of  a  man's  own  life, 
and  the  naturalness  of  his  conception  of  a  sermon. 
I  can  conceive  of  but  two  things  which  should  cause 
the  preacher  any  difficulty  in  regard  to  the  abundance 
of  subjects  for  his  preaching.  The  first  is  the  sterility 
of  his  own  mind,  the  second  is  a  stilted  and  unnatural 
idea  of  what  the  sermon  he  is  going  to  write  must  be. 
Let  the  man's  own  mind  be  everywhere  else  except 
upon  the  things  of  God,  let  his  own  spiritual  life  be 
meagre  and  unsuggestive,  let  him  feel  no  developing 


V 


150         LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

power  in  his  own  experience,  and  I  can  see  him  sitting 
in  despair,  or  hurrying  hither  and  thither  in  distrac- 
tion, as  the  day  approaches  when  he  mnst  talk  of  some- 
thing, and  he  has  nothing  of  which  to  talk.  Or  let 
him  once  get  the  idea  that  every  sermon,  or  that  any 
particular  sermon,  is  to  be  a  great  sermon,  a  ^^pulpit- 
effort,"  as  the  dreadful  epithet  runs,  and  again  Le 
is  all  lost.  Which  of  these  quiet,  simple,  practical 
themes  that  offer  themselves  is  suitable  to  bear  the 
aspirations  and  contortions  of  his  eloquence?  The 
first  of  the  difficulties  I  say  no  more  about,  only  be- 
cause I  seem  to  have  talked  to  you  of  nothing  else 
than  the  way  in  which  there  must  be  a  man  behind 
every  sermon,  though,  indeed,  I  do  think  that  the 
most  important,  I  had  almost  said  the  only  important, 
thing  in  this  matter  of  learning  to  preach^/  But  I  say 
no  more  of  that  just  now.  This  other  matter  let  me 
dwell  on  for  a  moment.  The  notion  of  a  great  ser- 
mon, either  constantly  or  occasionally  haunting  the 
preacher,  is  fatal.  It  hampers,  as  I  said,  the  freedom 
of  utterance.  Many  a  true  and  helpful  word  which 
your  people  need,  and  whi^h  you  ought  to  say  to 
them,  will  seem  unworthy  of  the  dignity  of  your 
great  discourse.  Some  poor  exhorter  coming  along 
the  next  week,  and  sa^dng  it,  will  sweep  the  last  recol- 
lection of  your  selfish  achievement  out  of  the  minds 
of  people.  Never  tolerate  any  idea  of  the  dignity  of 
a  sermon  which  will  keep  you  from  saying  anything 


THE  MAKING   OF  THE  SEBMON.  151 

in  it  which  you  ought  to  say,  or  which  your  people 
ought  to  hear.  It  is  the  same  folly  as  making  your 
chair  so  fine  that  you  dare  not  sit  down  in  it.  There 
will  come  great,  or  at  least  greater  sermons  in  every 
live  minister's  career,  sermons  which  will  stand  out 
for  vigor  and  beauty,  distinctly  above  his  ordinary 
work,  but  they  will  come  without  deliberation,  the 
flowers  of  his  ministry,  the  offspring  of  moments 
which  found  his  powers  at  their  best  activity  and  him 
most  regardless  of  effect.  It  is  good  and  encourag- 
ing, it  helps  one's  faith  in  human  nature,  and  it  has 
an  influence  to  keep  us  from  the  pulpit's  besetting 
follies,  when  we  see  how  universally  the  dehberate 
attempt  to  make  great  sermons  fails.  They  never 
have  the  influence,  and  they  very  seldom  win  the 
praise,  that  they  desire.  The  sermons  of  which  no- 
body speaks,  the  sermons  which  come  from  mind  and 
heart,  and  go  to  heart  and  mind  with  as  little  con- 
sciousness as  possible  of  tongue  and  ear,  those  are 
the  sermons  that  do  the  work,  that  make  men  better 
men,  and  really  sink  into  their  affections.  They  are 
like  the  perfect  days  '^hen  no  man  says,  "  How  fine 
it  is,"  but  when  every  man  does  his  best  work  and 
feels  most  fuUy  what  a  blessed  thing  it  is  to  live. 

I  think,  too,  that  this  wrong  notion  about  sermons 
has  led  to  a  great  deal  of  the  bad  talk  which  is  run- 
ning about  now  among  both  clergymen  and  laymen 
about  the  excessive  amount  of  preaching.     ''  How  is 


152        LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

it  possible/'  they  say,  "  that  any  man  should  bring 
forth  two  strong,  good  sermons  every  week?  It  is 
impossible.     Let  us  have  only  one  sermon  every  Sun- 

"'^  day ;  and  if  the  people  will  insist  on  coming  twice  to 
the  church,  let  us  cheat  them  with  a  little  poor  music 
and  a  '  few  remarks,'  and  call  it  '  vesper  service,'  or  lei 
us  tell  a  few  stories  to  the  Sunday-school,  and  call  it 
'children's  church';  but  let  us  not  preach  twice  to 
men  and  women.  It  is  impossible."  It  is  impossible, 
if  by  a  sermon  you  intend  a  finished  oration.  It  is 
as  impossible  to  produce  that  twice  as  it  is  undesir- 
able to  produce  it  once  a  week.  But  that  a  man  who 
lives  with  God,  whose  delight  is  to  study  God's  words 
in  the  Bible,  in  the  world,  in  history,  in  human  na- 
ture, who  is  thinking  about  Christ,  and  man,  and  sal- 
vation every  day — that  he  should  not  be  able  to  talk 
about  these  things  of  his  heart,  seriously,  lovingly, 
thoughtfull}^,  simply,  for  two  half -hours  every  week, 
is  inconceivable,  and  I  do  not  believe  it.     Cast  off 

V  the  haunting  incubus  of  the  notion  of  great  sermons. 
Care  not  for  your  sermon,  but  for  your  truth,  and  for 
your  people;  and  subjects  Avill  spring  up  on  ever}^ 
side  of  you,  and  the  chances  to  preach  upon  them  will 
be  all  too  few.  I  beg  you  not  to  fall  into  this  foolish 
talk  about  too  much  preaching.  It  is  not  for  us  min- 
isters to  say  that  there  is  no  need  of  more  than  one 
discourse  a  day.  If  you  have  anything  to  say,  and 
say  it  bravely  and  simply,  men  will  come  to  hear  you. 


TEE  MAKING   OF  THE  SEBMON.  153 

If  you  will  preach  as  faithfuUy  and  thoughtfully  at 
the  second  service  as  at  the  first,  the  second  service 
will  not  be  deserted.  At  any  rate,  it  is  oui*  place  to 
stand  by  our  pulpits  tiU  men  have  deserted  us,  and 
not,  for  the  sake  of  sa\dng  our  own  credit,  to  shut  the 
church  doors  while  they  are  still  ready  to  come  and 
liear. 

But  to  return  more  closely  to  our  subject ;  having 
settled  in  general  what  topics  may  be  preached  upon, 
how  shall  the  topic  for  a  single  sermon,  the  sermon 
for  next  Sunday,  be  selected?  I  answer  that  there 
are  three  principles  which  have  a  right  to  enter  into 
the  decision.  They  are  the  bent  of  the  preacher's  in- 
clination, the  symmetry  and  "  scale  "  of  all  his  preach- 
ing, and  the  pecuhar  needs  of  his  people.  I  mention 
the  three  in  the  order  in  which  they  are  apt  to  pre- 
sent themselves  to  the  minister  as  he  makes  his  choice. 
Reverse  that  order,  begin  with  the  last,  and  you 
have  the  elements  of  a  right  choice  rightly  arranged. 
First  comes  the  sympathetic  and  wise  perception  of 
what  the  people  need ;  not  necessarily  what  they  con- 
sciously want,  though,  remember,  no  more  necessa- 
rily what  they  do  not  want.  This  perception  is  not 
the  sudden  result  of  an  impression  that  has  come 
from  some  lively  conversation  which  has  sprung  up 
on  a  parish  visit,  not  the  desire  to  confute  the  cavil 
of  some  single  captious  disputant ;  it  is  the  aggregate 
effect  of  a  large  sympathetic  intercourse,  the  fruit-  of 


154  LECTURES   ON  FEE  ACHING. 

a  true  knowledge  of  human  nature,  combined  with  a 
special  knowledge  of  these  special  people,  and  a  cor- 
dial interest  in  the  circumstances  under  which  they 
live.  That  evidently  is  no  easy  thing  to  win.  It  re- 
quires of  a  minister  that  timeliness  and  that  breadth 
which  it  is  very  hard  to  find  in  union  with  each  other. 
It  is  not  something  to  be  picked  up  in  the  easy  inti- 
macy of  parochial  visiting.  It  may  be  helped  there, 
but  it  must  be  born  of  an  alert  mind  fully  interested 
in  the  times  in  which  it  lives,  and  a  devout  soul  really 
loving  the  souls  with  which  it  has  to  deal. 

The  second  element  of  choice,  the  desire  to  preserve 
a  symmetry  and  proportion  in  our  preaching,  of 
com'se  conies  in  to  modify  the  action  of  the  first. 
Not  merely  by  our  present  perception  of  what  people 
need,  but  in  relation  to  our  whole  scheme  of  teaching, 
to  what  has  gone  before  and  what  is  to  come  after, 
the  subject  of  next  Sunday  is  to  be  selected.  I  have 
suggested  to  you  in  another  lecture  how  great  a  help 
the  ancient  calendar  of  the  church  year  is  in  this 
respect.  The  prolonged  and  connected  course  of  ser- 
mons is  a  safeguard  against  mere  flightiness  and  par- 
tialness  in  the  choice  of  topics.  The  only  serious 
danger  about  a  course  of  sermons  is,  that  where  the 
serpent  grows  too  long  it  is  difficult  to  have  the 
vitality  distributed  through  all  his  length,  and  even 
to  his  last  extremity.  Too  many  courses  of  sermons 
start  with  a  very  vital  head,  that  draws  behind  it  by 


THE  MAKING    OF  THE  SERMON.  155 

and  by  a  very  lifeless  tail.  The  head  springs  and  the 
tail  crawls,  and  so  the  beast  makes  no  graceful  prog- 
ress. I  think  that  a  set  and  formally  announced 
course  of  sermons  very  seldom  preserves  both  its 
symmetry  and  its  interest.  The  system  of  long 
courses  is  apt  to  secure  proportion  at  too  great  an 
expense  of  spontaneity.  The  only  sure  means  of 
securing  the  result  is  orderhness  in  the  preacher's 
mind;  the  grasp  of  Christian  truth  as  a  system, 
and  of  the  Christian  life  as  a  steady  movement  of 
the  whole  nature  through  Christ  to  the  Father. 

Then  comes  the  third  principle  by  which  the  choice 
is  regulated,  the  principle  that  a  man  can  preach  best 
about  what  he  at  that  moment  wishes  to  preach 
about,  the  element  of  the  preacher's  own  disposition. 
You  can  see  whj^  it  should  not  be  made  the  first  ele- 
ment. I  could  tell  you  of  pulpits  which  have  sinned 
and  failed  by  making  it  the  first  element.  But  you 
can  see,  also,  why  it  must  come  in  at  least  as  the 
third  element.  It  gives  the  freshness  and  joyousness 
and  spring  to  the  other  two.  You  cannot  think  of  a 
people  hstening  with  pleasure  or  vivacity  to  a  sermon 
on  a  subject  which  they  knew  the  minister  thought 
they  needed  to  hear  about,  and  thought  the  time  had 
come  to  preach  about,  but  which  they  also  knew  that 
he  did  not  care  for,  and  did  not  want  to  preach  upon. 
The  personal  interest  of  the  preacher  is  the  buoyant 
air  that  fills  the  mass  and  lifts  it. 


156  LECTUEES  ON  PREACHING. 

These  three  considerations,  then,  settle  the  sermon's 
topic.  Evidently  neither  is  sufficient  by  itself.  The 
sermon  preached  only  with  reference  to  the  people's 
needs  is  heavy.  The  sermon  preached  for  symmetr}^ 
is  formal.  The  sermon  preached  with  sole  reference 
to  the  preacher's  wish  is  whimsical.  The  constant 
consideration  of  all  three  makes  preaching  always 
strong  and  alwaj^s  fresh.  When  all  three  urgently 
unite  to  settle  the  topic  of  some  special  sermon  I  do 
not  see  why  we  may  not  prepare  that  sermon  in  a 
solemn  exhilaration,  feeHng  sure  that  it  is  God's  will 
that  we  should  preach  upon  that  topic  then ;  and, 
when  it  is  written,  go  forth  with  it  on  Sunday  to  our 
pulpit,  declaring,  almost  with  the  certainty  of  one  of 
the  old  prophets,  —  '^The  Word  of  the  Lord  came 
unto  me,  saying." 

Let  me  add  this,  that  the  meeting  of  these  various 
elements  of  choice  is  clearest  when  the  selection  is 
most  deliberate.  Always  have  the  topic  of  your  ser- 
mon in  your  mind  as  long  as  possible  before  you  be- 
gin your  preparation.  Whatever  else  is  hasty  and 
extemporaneous,  let  it  not  be  your  decision  as  to 
what  you  will  preach  about. 

The  subject  chosen,  next  will  come  the  special  prep- 
aration for  the  sermon.  This  ought  to  consist  mostly 
in  bringing  together,  and  arranging,  and  illuminating 
a  knowledge  of  the  subject  and  thought   about   it 


THE  MAKING    OF  THE  SEBMON.  157 

which  has  already  been  in  the  possession  of  the 
preacher.  I  think  that  the  less  of  special  prepara- 
tion that  is  needed  for  a  sermon,  the  better  the  ser- 
mon is.  The  best  sermon  would  be  that  whose 
thoughts,  though  carefully  arranged,  and  lighted  up 
with  every  illustration  that  could  make  them  clearer 
for  this  special  appearance,  were  all  old  thoughts, 
familiar  to  the  preacher's  mind,  long  a  part  of  his  ex- 
perience. Here  is  suggested,  as  you  see,  a  clear  and 
important  difference  between  two  kinds  of  preachers. 
One  preacher  depends  for  his  sermon  on  special  read- 
ing. Each  discourse  is  the  result  of  work  done  in  the 
week  in  which  it  has  been  written.  All  his  study 
is  with  reference  to  some  immediately  pressing  occa- 
sion. Another  preacher  studies  and  thinks  with  far 
more  industry,  is  always  gathering  truth  into  his 
mind,  but  it  is  not  gathered  with  reference  to  the 
next  sermon.  It  is  truth  sought  for  truth's  sake,  and 
for  that  largeness  and  ripeness  and  fullness  of  char- 
acter which  alone  can  make  him  a  strong  preacher. 
Which  is  the  better  method?  The  latter  bevond  all 
doubt.  In  the  first  place,  the  man  of  special  prepara- 
tions is  always  crude ;  he  is  always  tempted  to  take 
up  some  haK-considered  thought  that  strikes  him  in 
the  hurry  of  his  reading,  and  adopt  it  suddenly,  and 
set  it  before  his  people,  as  if  it  were  his  true  convic- 
tion.    Many  a  minister's  old  sermons  are  scattered  aU 


158        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

over  with  ideas  which  he  never  held,  but  which  once 
held  him  for  a  week,  like  the  camps  in  other  men's 
forests  where  a  wandering  hunter  has  slept  for  a  sin- 
gle night.  The  looseness  and  falseness,  the  weak- 
ening of  the  essential  sacredness  of  conviction  which 
must  come  from  years  of  such  work,  any  one  may 
see.  And  in  the  second  place,  the  immediate  prep- 
aration for  a  sermon  is  something  that  the  people 
always  feel.  They  know  the  difference  between  a 
sermon  that  has  been  crammed,  and  a  sermon  which 
has  been  thought  long  before,  and  of  which  only  the 
form,  and  the  illustrations,  and  the  special  develop- 
ments, and  the  application  of  the  thought,  are  new. 
Some  preachers  are  always  preaching  the  last  book 
which  they  have  read,  and  their  congregations  always 
find  it  out.  The  feeling  of  superficialness  and  thin- 
ness attaches  to  all  they  do.  The  exegesis  of  a  pas- 
sage which  the  man  never  thought  of  till  he  began  to 
preach  about  it  may  be  clever  and  suggestive,  but  it 
inspires  no  confidence.  I  do  not  rest  on  it  with  even 
that  amount  of  assurance  which  the  same  man's  care- 
ful study  would  inspire.  It  is  got  up  for  the  occa- 
sion. It  is  like  a  politician's  opinions  just  before 
election.  But  the  strongest  reason  for  the  rule  which 
I  am  stating  comes  from  the  very  nature  of  the  ser- 
mon on  which  I  have  dwelt  so  much.  The  sermon 
is  truth  and  man  together;  it  is  the  truth  brought 
through  the  man.     The  personal  element  is  essential. 


TRE  MAKING   OF  THE  SERMON.  159 

Now  the  truth  which  the  preacher  has  gathered  on 
Friday  for  the  sermon  which  he  preaches  on  Sunday 
has  come  across  the  man,  but  it  has  not  come 
through  the  man.  It  has  never  been  wi*ought  into 
his  experience.  It  comes  weighted  and  winged  with 
none  of  his  personal  life.  If  it  is  true,  it  is  a  book's 
truth,  not  a  man's  truth  that  we  get.  It  does  not 
make  a  full,  real  sermon. 

If  I  am  right  in  this  idea,  then  it  will  follow  that 
the  preacher's  life  must  be  a  life  of  large  accumula- 
tion. He  must  not  be  always  trying  to  make  ser- 
mons, but  always  seeking  truth,  and  out  of  the  truth 
which  he  has  won  the  sermons  will  make  themselves. 
I  can  remember  how,  before  I  began  to  preach,  every 
book  I  read  seemed  to  spring  into  a  sermon.  It 
seemed  as  if  one  could  read  nothing  without  sitting 
down  instantly  and  turning  it  into  a  discourse.  But 
as  I  began  and  went  on  preaching,  the  sermons  that 
came  of  special  books  became  less  and  less  satisfac- 
tory and  more  and  more  rare.  Some  truth  which 
one  has  long  known,  stirred  to  peculiar  activity  by 
something  that  has  happened  or  by  contact  with 
some  other  mind,  makes  the  best  sermon  •  as  the  best 
dinner  comes  not  from  a  hurried  raid  upon  the 
caterer's,  but  from  the  resources  of  a  constantly 
well-furnished  house.  Constant  quotations  in  ser- 
mons are,  I  think,  a  sign  of  the  same  crudeness. 
They  show  an  undigested  knowledge.     They  lose  the 


^ 


160  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

power  of  personality.  They  daub  the  wall  with  tin- 
tempered  mortar.  Here  is  the  need  of  broad  and 
generous  cultui'e.  Learn  to  study  for  the  sake  of 
truth,  learn  to  think  for  the  profit  and  the  joy  of 
thinking.  Then  your  sermon  shall  be  like  the  leap- 
ing of  a  fountain  and  not  like  the  pumping  of  a 
pump. 

For  over  six  hundred  years  now  it  has  been  the 
almost  invariable  custom  of  Christian  preachers  to 
take  a  text  from  Scripture  and  associate  their  thoughts 
more  or  less  strictly  with  that.  For  the  first  twelve 
Christian  centuries  there  seems  to  have  been  no  such 
prevailing  habit.  This  fact  ought  to  be  kept  in  mind 
whenever  the  custom  of  a  text  shows  anj^  tendency  to 
become  despotic  or  to  restrain  in  any  way  the  liberty 
of  prophesying.  At  the  present  day  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  change  in  the  way  of  considering  the 
Bible  which  belongs  to  our  times  has  had  an  influence 
upon  our  feeling  with  regard  to  texts  and  our  treat- 
ment of  them.  The  unity  of  the  Bible,  the  relation 
of  its  parts,  its  organic  life,  the  essentialness  of  every 
part,  and  yet  the  distinct  difference  in  worth  and  dig- 
nity of  the  several  parts,  these  are  now  familiar  ideas 
as  they  were  not  a  few  years  ago.  There  was  a  time 
when  to  many  people  the  Bible  stood,  not  merely  a 
collection  of  various  books,  all  equally  the  Word  of 
God,  all  equally  useful  to  men,  but  also  as  a  succes- 
sion of  verses,  all  true,  all  edifying,  all  vital  with  the 


THE  MAKING    OF  THE  SERMON.  161 

Gospel.  A  page  of  the  Bible  torn  out  at  random  and 
blown  into  some  savage  island  seemed  to  have  in  it 
some  power  of  salvation.  The  result  of  such  a  feel- 
ing was,  of  course,  to  clothe  the  single  text  with  inde- 
pendent sacredness  and  meaning.  It  hardly  mat- 
tered from  what  part  of  the  Bible  it  might  come. 
Solomon's  Songs  and  St.  John's  Gospel  were  preached 
from  as  if  they  taught  the  same  truth  with  the  same 
authority.  The  cynical  author  of  the  Ecclesiastes 
was  made  to  utter  the  same  message  as  the  hopeful 
and  faithful  St.  Paul.  This  is  not  the  place  to  re- 
count the  causes  for  the  change,  nor  to  estimate  its 
value  or  its  dangers.  Considered  simply  as  it  has 
affected  the  preacher's  relation  to  the  Bible,  I  think 
there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  improvement  it  has 
brought.  It  has  made  the  single  text  of  less  impor- 
tance. It  has  led  men  to  desire  an  entrance  into  the 
heart  and  spirit  of  the  Bible.  It  has  made  biblical 
study  to  consist,  not  in  the  weighing  of  text  against 
text,  but  in  the  estimating  of  great  streams  of  tend- 
ency, the  following  of  great  Hues  of  thought,  the  ap- 
prehension of  the  spirit  of  great  spiritual  thinkers  who 
^^had  the  mind  of  Christ."  The  single  verse  is  no 
longer  Like  a  jewel  set  in  a  wall  which  one  may  pluck 
out  and  carry  off  as  an  independent  thing.  It  is  a 
window  by  which  we  may  look  through  the  waU  and 
see  the  richness  it  incloses.  Taken  out  of  its  place  it 
has  no  value.     To  enter  thoroughly  into  the  spirit  of 


162  LECTURES   ON  PEE  ACHING. 

this  new  and  better  relation  to  the  Bible  seems  to  me 
to  be  all  that  the  preacher  needs,  to  guide  him  with 
reference  to  the  selection  and  the  use  of  texts.  Make 
them  always  windows.  Go  up  and  look  through 
them  and  then  tell  the  people  what  you  see.  Keep, 
them  in  their  places  in  the  wall  of  truth.  I  would 
not  say  that  it  is  not  good  to  use  them,  though  cer- 
tainly there  may  be  true  sermons  without  them. 
They  are  like  golden  nails  to  hold  our  preaching  to 
the  Bible.  Whether  the  subject  spring  out  of  the 
text  as  stal  g  the  divine  philosophy  that  underlies 
some  Scripture  incident^  or  the  text  spring  out  of  the 
subject  as  describing  some  incident  that  illustrates 
divine-  philosophy,  is  unimportant.  There  are  both 
kinds  of  sermons  and  both  kinds  are  good.  Only,  as 
one  rule  that  has  no  exceptions,  let  j^our  use  of  texts 
be  real.  Never  make  them  mean  what  they  do  not 
mean.  In  the  name  of  taste  and  reverence  alike,  let 
there  be  no  twists  and  puns,  no  dealing  with  the 
word  of  God  as  it  would  be  insulting  to  deal  with  the 
word  of  any  friend.  The  Bible  has  suffered  in  the 
hands  of  many  Christian  preachers  what  the  block  of 
wood  which  the  savage  chooses  for  his  idol  suffers 
from  its  worshipper.  The  same  selection  which  con- 
secrates it  as  more  sacred  than  other  blocks  of  wood 
condemns  it  also  to  have  all  his  ugly  fancies  and  fan- 
tastic conceits  painted  and  carved  upon  it.  It  is  the 
most  sacred  and  most  hideous  block  of  wood  in  the 


THE  MAKING   OF  THE  SERMON.  163 

village.  So  the  sacredness  of  the  Bible  has  subjected 
it  to  a  usage  that  ijo  other  book  has  received.  Such 
a  fantastic  and  irreverent  way  of  manifesting  our 
reverence  has  lasted  too  long.  It  is  time  that  it  were 
stopped.  I  beg  you  to  do  what  you  can  to  stop  it. 
At  least  make  your  own  use  of  the  Bible  reverent 
and  true.  Never  draw  out  of  a  text  a  meaning  which 
you  know  is  not  there.  If  your  text  has  not  your 
truth  in  it,  find  some  other  text  which  has.  If  you 
can  find  no  text  for  it  in  the  Bible,  then  preach  on 
something  else. 

I  pass  on  to  a  few  remarks,  which  will  be  mere 
suggestions,  about  the  style  of  sermons.  The  matter 
will  control  the  style  if  it  is  free.  The  object  of 
everj^  training  of  style  is  to  make  it  so  simple  and 
flexible  an  organ  that  through  it  the  moving  and 
changing  thought  can  utter  itself  freely.  I  pity  any 
man  who  writes  the  same  upon  all  topics.  He  is  evi- 
dently a  slave  to  himself.  To  be  yourself,  yet  not  to 
be  haunted  by  an  image  of  yourself  to  which  you  are 
continually  trying  to  correspond,  that  is  the  secret  of 
a  style  at  once  characteristic  and  free.  I  go  to  hear  a 
preacher  whose  style  is  peculiarly  his  own,  and  very 
often  indeed  I  find  him  a  slave  to  his  own  peculiari- 
ties. He  must  not  think  anything  except  what  is 
capable  of  being  said  in  a  certain  way.  A  true  style 
is  like  a  suit  of  the  finest  chain  armor,  so  strong  that 
the  thought  can  go  into  battle  with  it,  but  so  flexible 


164  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

that  it  can  hold  the  pencil  in  its  steel  fingers  for  the 
most  delicate  painting.  For  the  acquisition  of  such 
a  style  no  labor  is  too  great.  I  think  that  it  is  good 
for  every  minister  to  write  something  besides  ser- 
mons,— books,  articles,  essays,  at  least  letters;  pro- 
vided he  has  control  of  himself  and  still  remains  the 
preacher,  and  does  not  become  an  amateur  in  litera- 
ture instead.  If  he  can  do  it  rightly,  it  frees  him 
from  the  tyranny  of  himself,  and  keeps  him  in  con- 
tact with  larger  standards.  Some  of  our  noblest 
thinkers  fail  of  effect  for  want  of  an  organ  of  utter- 
ance, a  free  pulpit-style.  The  trouble  with  them, 
often,  is  that  they  never  wi-ote  anything  but  sermons. 
Indeed  I  do  not  think  there  is  any  such  thing  as  a 
sermon-style  proper.  He  who  can  write  other  things 
well,  give  him  the  soul  and  purpose  and  knowledge 
of  a  preacher  and  he  will  write  you  a  good  sermon. 
But  he  who  cannot  write  anything  well  cannot  write 
a  sermon  well,  although  we  often  think  he  can.  To 
him  who  has  no  literary  skill  all  subjects  are  alike. 
If  you  cannot  swim,  it  matters  not  whether  there  be 
twenty  or  forty  feet  of  water. 

In  a  word,  then,  I  should  say,  get  facility  of  utter- 
ance where  you  can ;  in  part  at  least,  outside  of 
sermon- wi-iting.  Make  your  style  characteristic  and 
forcible  by  never  writing  imless  you  have  something 
that  you  really  want  to  say ;  then  let  the  changes  of 
your  truth  freely  play  within  it  and  shape  its  special 


THE  MAKING   OF  THE  SERMON.  165 

forms.  A  style  which  is  really  a  man's  own  will 
grow  as  long  as  he  grows.  One  of  the  best  things 
about  Macaulay's  life  is  his  behef  that  as  a  writer  he 
was  improving  to  the  last.  It  belonged  to  that  vital- 
ity of  which  the  man  and  the  writing  were  both  so 
fuU. 

The  range  of  sermon-writing  gives  it  a  capacity  of 
various  vices  which  no  other  kind  of  composition 
can  presume  to  rival.  The  minister  may  sin  in  the 
same  sermon  by  grandiloquence  and  meanness,  by  ex- 
aggeration and  inadequacy.  He  needs  a  many-sided 
watchfulness,  or  rather  a  perfectly  true  literary  na- 
ture, in  order  that  he  may  do  what  Roger  Ascham  so 
quaintly  and  tellingly  sums  up  thus :  "In  Genere  Sub- 
limi  to  avoid  Nimium,  in  Mediocri  to  atteyne  Satis, 
in  Humili  to  eschew  Parum."  The  way  that  he  ad- 
vises to  do  it  is  to  study  Cicero.  Certainly,  stated 
more  generally,  the  true  way  is  to  know  first  what 
style  is  for,  that  it  is  an  instrument  and  not  an  end, 
and  then  as  an  instrument  to  perfect  it  by  every 
noble  intimacy  and  laborious  practice. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  speak  of  this  matter  of 
style  without  saying  something  of  the  danger  of  imi- 
tation and  the  way  to  guard  against  it.  It  is  con- 
nected with  that  personalness  of  the  work  of  preach- 
ing about  which  I  have  said  so  much.  A  successful 
preacher  is  not  like  a  successful  author.  He  stands 
out  himself  more    prominently  through   his   work. 


166  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

Men  realize  him  more  and  feel  in  themselves  the 
same  powers  by  which  he  has  succeeded.  A  mere 
finished  result  such  as  the  author  gives  us  in  his 
book  does  not  excite  the  desire  of  imitation  hke  the 
sight  of  the  process  going  on  in  personal  action  be- 
fore us  in  the  pulpit.  This  is  the  reason  why  those 
preachers  whose  power  has  in  it  the  largest  element 
of  personality  are  the  richest  in  imitators.  There  are 
some  strong  voices  crying  in  the  wilderness  who  fill 
the  land  with  echoes.  There  are  some  preachers  who 
have  done  noble  work  of  whom  we  are  often  com- 
pelled to  question  whether  the  work  that  they  have 
accomplished  is  after  all  greater  than  the  harm  that 
they  have  innocently  done  by  spoiling  so  many  men 
in  doing  it.  They  have  gone  through  the  ministry, 
as  a  savage  goes  through  the  forest,  blazing  his  way 
upon  the  trees  that  stand  around  him,  so  that  you  can 
tell  as  you  travel  through  the  land  just  where  tbey 
have  been  by  the  tones  of  voice  and  the  turns  of  sen- 
tences which  they  have  left  behind  them.  They  leave 
their  imitators  behind  them  when  they  die,  and  in  a 
sense  which  is  not  pleasant,  "  being  dead,  yet  speak." 
Often  the  circle  of  one  man's  influence  widens,  grow- 
ing feebler  and  feebler  until  it  meets  the  wave  that  is 
spreading  from  another  centre,  another  popular  pulpit, 
and  only  there  they  obliterate  each  other,  and  calmness 
is  restored  and  freedom  to  be  one's  self  is  reasserted. 
The  dangers  of  imitation  are  two — one  positive, 


TRE  MAKING  *^0F  THE  SERMON.  167 

the  other  negative.  There  is  evil  in  what  you  get 
from  him  whom  you  imitate  and  there  is  a  loss  of  your 
own  peculiar  power.  The  positive  evil  comes  from 
the  fact  that  that  which  is  worst  in  any  man  is  al- 
ways the  most  copiable.  And  the  spirit  of  the  copy- 
ist is  blind.  He  cannot  discern  the  real  seat  of  the 
power  that  he  admu^es.  He  fixes  on  some  little  thing 
and  repeats  that  perpetually,  as  if  so  he  could  get  the 
essential  greatness  of  his  hero.  There  is  a  passage 
in  Macaulay's  diary  which  is  full  of  philosophy.  '-^  I 
looked  through ,"  he  says.  "He  is,  I  see,  an  imi- 
tator of  me.  But  I  am  a  very  unsafe  model.  My 
manner  is,  I  think,  and  the  world  thinks,  on  the 
whole  a  good  one,  but  it  is  very  near  to  a  very  bad 
manner  indeed,  and  those  clear  characteristics  of  my 
style  which  are  the  most  easily  copied  are  the  most 
questionable.'^  All  this  is  very  true  of  ministers. 
There  is  hardly  any  good  pulpit-style  among  us  which 
is  not  very  near  to  a  very  bad  style  indeed,  and  the 
most  prominent  characteristics  are  very  often  the 
most  questionable.  The  obtuseness  of  the  imitator 
is  amazing.  I  remember  going  years  ago  with  an  in- 
telligent friend  to  hear  a  great  orator  lecture.  The 
discourse  was  rich,  thoughtful,  glowing,  and  delight- 
ful. As  we  came  away  my  companion  seemed  medi- 
tative. By  and  by  he  said,  "  Did  you  see  where  his 
power  lay  V  I  felt  unable  to  analyze  and  epitomize 
in  an  instant  such  a  complex  result,  and  meekly  I 


168  LECTURES  ON  'PREACHING. 

said,  ^^  No,  did  you  ? "  ''  Yes,"  he  replied  briskly,  "  I 
watched  him  and  it  is  in  the  double  motion  of  his 
hand.  When  he  wanted  to  solemnize  and  calm  and 
subdue  us  he  turned  the  palm  of  his  hand  down ; 
when  he  wanted  to  elevate  and  inspire  us  he  turned 
the  palm  of  his  hand  up.  That  was  it."  And  that 
was  all  the  man  had  seen  in  an  eloquent  speech.  He 
was  no  fool,  but  he  was  an  imitator.  He  was  looking 
for  a  single  secret  for  a  multifarious  effect.  I  suppose 
he  has  gone  on  from  that  day  to  this  turning  his 
hand  upside  down  and  downside  up  and  wondering 
that  nobody  is  either  solemnized  or  inspired. 

The  negative  evil  of  imitation,  the  loss  of  a  man's 
own  personal  power,  is  even  more  evident  and  more 
^^  melancholy.  If  it  were  only  the  men  who  were  in- 
^  capable  of  any  manner  of  their  own  that  caught  up 
other  people's  manners  it  would  not  be  so  bad,  but 
often  strong  men  do  it.  Men  imitate  others  who  are 
every  wa}^  their  inferiors,  and  so  some  pretentious 
blockhead  not  merely  gives  us  himself,  but  loses  for 
us  the  simple  and  straightforward  power  of  some  bet- 
ter man,  as  a  log  of  wood  lodged  just  in  the  neck  of 
the  channel  stops  the  water  of  a  free,  hve  stream. 

I  am  convinced  that  the  only  escape  from  the 
power  of  imitation  when  it  has  once  touched  us — and 
remember  it  often  touches  us  without  our  conscious- 
ness ;  you  and  I  may  be  imitating  other  men  to-day 
and  not  at  all  aware  of  it — lies  in  a  deeper  serious- 


THE  MAKING   OF  THE  SERMON.  169 

ness  about  all  our  work.  What  we  need  is  a  fuller 
sense  of  personal  responsibility  and  a  more  real  rev- 
erence for  the  men  who  are  greater  than  we  are. 
Give  a  man  real  personal  sense  of  his  own  duty  and 
he  must  do  it  in  his  own  way.  The  temptation  of 
imitation  is  so  insidious  that  you  cannot  resist  it  by 
the  mere  determination  that  you  will  not  imitate. 
You  must  bring  a  real  self  of  your  own  to  meet  this 
intrusive  self  of  another  man  that  is  crowding  in 
upon  you.  Cultivate  your  own  sense  of  duty.  The 
only  thing  that  keeps  the  ocean  from  flowing  back 
into  the  river  is  that  the  river  is  always  pouring 
down  into  the  ocean.  And  again,  if  you  really  rev- 
erence a  great  man,  if  you  look  up  to  and  rejoice  in 
his  good  work,  if  you  truly  honor  him,  you  will  get 
at  his  spirit,  and  doing  that  you  will  cease  to  imitate 
his  outside  ways.  You  insult  a  man  when  you  try 
to  catch  his  power  by  moving  your  arms  or  shaping 
youi*  sentences  like  his,  but  you  honor  him  when  you 
try  to  love  truth  and  do  God's  will  the  better  for 
the  love  and  faithfulness  which  you  see  in  him.  So 
that  the  release  from  the  slavery  of  superficial  imita- 
tion must  come  not  by  a  supercilious  contempt,  but 
by  a  profounder  reverence  for  men  stronger  and 
more  successful  than  yourself. 

9 

With  regard  to  the  vexed  question  of  written  or 
unwritten  sermons  I  have  not  very  much  to  say.     I 


170        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

think  it  is  a  question  whose  importance  has  been 
very  much  exaggerated,  and  the  attempt  to  settle 
which  with  some  invariable  rule  has  been  unwise, 
and  probably  has  made  stumbling  speakers  out  of 
some  men  who  might  have  been  effective  readers,  or 
stupid  readers  out  of  men  who  might  have  spoken 
with  force  and  fire.  The  different  methods  have 
theii-  evident  different  advantages.  In  the  written 
sermon  the  best  part  of  the  care  is  put  in  where  it 
belongs,  in  the  thought  and  construction  of  the  dis- 
course. There  is  dehberateness.  There  is  the  assur- 
ance of  industry  and  the  man's  best  work.  The  truth 
comes  to  the  people  with  the  weight  that  it  gets 
from  being  evidently  the  preacher's  serious  conviction. 
There  is  self-restraint.  There  is  some  exemption  from 
those  foolish  fluent  things  that  slip  so  easily  off 
of  the  ready  tongue.  The  writer  is  spared  some  of 
those  despairing  moments  which  come  to  the  extem- 
poraneous speaker  when  a  wretched  piece  of  folly 
escapes  him  which  he  would  give  anything  to  recall 
but  cannot,  and  he  sees  the  raven-like  reporters  catch 
the  silly  morsel  as  it  drops.  Whatever  may  be  said 
about  the  duty  of  labor  upon  extemporaneous  dis- 
courses, the  advantage  in  point  of  faithfulness  will 
no  doubt  always  be  with  the  written  sermon.  King 
Charles  II.  used  to  call  the  practice  of  preach- 
ing from  manuscript  which  had  arisen  during  the 
civil  wars,  "  this  slothful  way  of  preaching,"  but  he 


TRE  MAKING   OF  THE  SERMON.  171 

was  comparing  it  probably  with  the  method  of 
preaching  by  memory,  the  whole  sermon  being  first 
written  and  then  learnt  by  heart,  —  a  method  which 
some  men  practice,  but  which  I  hope  nobody  com- 
mends. On  the  other  hand,  the  extemporaneous  dis- 
course has  the  advantage  of  alertness.  It  gives  a 
sense  of  liveliness.  It  is  more  immediately  striking. 
It  possesses  more  activity  and  w^armth.  It  conveys 
an  idea  of  steadiness  and  readiness,  of  poise  and  self- 
possession,  even  to  the  most  rude  perceptions.  Men 
have  an  admiration  for  it,  as  indicating  a  mastery 
of  powers  and  an  independence  of  artificial  helps. 
A  rough  backwoodsman  in  Virginia  heard  Bishop 
Meade  preach  an  extemporaneous  sermon,  and,  be- 
ing somewhat  unfamiliar  with  the  ways  of  the  Epis- 
copal Church,  he  said  '^he  liked  him.  He  was  the 
first  one  he  ever  saw  of  those  petticoat  fellows  that 
could  shoot  w^ithout  a  rest." 

It  is  easy  thus  to  characterize  the  two  methods,  but, 
when  our  characterizations  are  complete,  what  shaU 
we  say  ?  Only  two  things,  I  think,  and  those  so  sim- 
ple and  so  commonplace  that  it  is  strange  that  they 
should  need  to  be  said,  but  certainly  they  do.  The 
first  is  that  two  such  different  methods  must  belong 
in  general  to  two  different  kinds  of  men ;  that  some 
men  are  made  for  manuscripts,  and  some  for  the  open 
platform  5  that  to  exclude  either  class  from  the  minis- 
try, or  to  compel  either  class  to  use  the  methods  of 


172  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

the  other^  would  rob  the  pulpit  by  silencing  some  of 
its  best  men.  The  other  remark  is  that  almost  every 
man,  in  some  proportion,  may  use  both  methods; 
that  they  help  each  other ;  that  you  will  write  better 
if  you  often  speak  without  your  notes,  and  you  will 
speak  better  if  you  often  give  yourself  the  discipline 
of  writing.  Add  to  these  merely  that  the  proportion 
of  extemporaneous  preaching  may  well  be  increased 
as  a  man  grows  older  in  the  ministry,  and  I  do  not 
know  what  more  to  say  in  the  way  of  general  sugges- 
tion. The  rest  must  be  left  to  a  man's  own  knowl- 
edge of  himself  and  that  personal  good  sense  which 
lies  behind  all  homiletics. 

But  there  is  one  thing  which  I  want  very  much  to 
urge  upon  you.  The  real  question  about  a  sermon  is, 
not  whether  it  is  extemporaneous  when  you  deliver  it 
to  your  people,  but  whether  it  ever  was  extempora- 
neous,— whether  there  ever  was  a  time  when  the  dis- 
course sprang  freshly  from  your  heart  and  mind. 
The  main  difference  in  sermons  is  that  some  sermons 
are,  and  other  sermons  are  not,  conscious  of  an  audi- 
ence. The  main  question  about  sermons  is  whether 
they  feel  their  hearers.  If  they  do,  they  are  enthusi- 
astic, personal,  and  warm.  If  they  do  not,  they  are 
calm,  abstract,  and  cold.  But  that  consciousness  of 
an  audience  is  something  that  may  come  into  the 
preacher's  study ;  and  if  it  does,  his  sermon  springs 
with  the  same  personalness  and  fervor  there  which  it 


THE  MAKING   OF  THE  SERMON.  "  173 

would  get  if  he  made  it  in  the  pulpit  with  the  multi- 
tude before  him.  I  think  that  every  earnest  preacher 
is  often  more  excited  as  he  writes,  kindles  more  then 
with  the  glow  of  sending  truth  to  men  than  he  ever 
does  in  speaking;  and  the  wonderful  thing  is  that 
that  fire,  if  it  is  really  present  in  the  sermon  when 
it  is  written,  stays  there,  and  breaks  out  into  flame 
again  when  the  delivery  of  the  sermon  comes.  The 
enthusiasm  is  stowed  away  and  kept.  It  is  like  the 
fire  that  was  packed  away  in  the  coal-beds  ages  ago 
and  comes  out  now  to  give  us  its  undecayed  and  un- 
wasted  light.  As  you  preach  old  sermons,  I  think  you 
can  always  tell,  even  if  the  history  of  them  is  forgotten, 
which  of  them  you  wrote  enthusiastically,  with  your 
people  vividly  before  you.  The  fire  is  in  them  still. 
Fenelon  had  a  favorite  maxim  that  anything  which 
was  truly  written  with  enthusiasm  could  be  quickly 
learned  even  by  some  one  else  than  its  author.  It 
is  the  same  idea :  that  which  once  has  true  life  in  it 
never  dies.  Believe  me,  this  is  the  most  important 
principle  about  the  matter.  It  differs,  no  doubt,  in 
different  subjects.  Some  kinds  of  discourses  we  can 
never  write.  They  must  be  made  as  we  deliver  them. 
Others  we  may  better  write,  if  we  can  write  with  the 
people  there  before  us.  Some  medicines  you  must 
mix  on  the  spot ;  others  you  may  mix  beforehand  and 
they  will  keep  their  power.  Only  be  sure  that  you 
are  a  true  preacher,  that  you  really  feel  your  people. 


174        LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

and  the  details  of  method  may  be  settled  by  minute 
and  personal  considerations, — by  your  special  fitness, 
in  some  degree  even  by  your  peculiar  taste.  I  really 
think  that  you  will  be  surprised  to  see  how  often  this 
idea  describes  the  secret  of  some  power  in  a  sermon 
which  you  have  found  it  hard  to  discover  while  you 
have  felt  it  very  deeply.  The  minister  who  reads  his 
manuscript  had  you  with  him  as  he  wrote  those 
y  pages.  In  the  calm  air  of  his  study,  sacred  with  the 
thought  and  prayer  of  years,  nothing  came  in  be- 
tween him  and  you  5  and  so  the  accidents  of  the  paper 
and  the  reading  amount  to  nothing.  The  sermon 
still  speaks  to  you.  But  sometimes  to  an  extempo- 
raneous preacher  his  very  extemporaneousness  proves 
a  dull,  dead  cloud,  which  wraps  itself  around  him, 
and  separates  him  from  the  people  who  are  crowded 
up  close  about  his  feet.  The  struggles  of  thought  are 
on  him.  He  is  busy  with  the  choice  of  words.  His 
mind  is  watching  its  own  action  as  it  seizes  on 
thought  after  thought.  There  is  a  process  of  mem- 
ory and  a  process  of  anticipation  going  on  all  the 
time  which  prevent  his  perfect  occupation  in  the  pres- 
ent act.  He  is  forced  to  recollect  himself,  and  so  he 
does  not  feel  the  people.  This,  I  am  sure,  is  a  true 
account  of  what  is  no  unusual  condition  of  the  extem- 
poraneous preacher's  mind.  I  think  that  the  best  ser- 
mons that  ever  have  been  preached,  taking  all  the 
qualities  of  sermons  into  account,  have  probably  been 


THE  MAKING   OF  THE  SERMON.  175 

extemporaneous  sermons,  but  that  the  number  of 
good  sermons  preached  from  manuscript  have  prob- 
ably been  far  greater  than  the  number  of  good  ser- 
mons preached  extemporaneously  5  and  he  who  can 
put  those  two  facts  together  will  arrive  at  some 
pretty  clear  and  just  idea  of  how  it  will  be  best  for 
him  to  preach. 

Let  me  offer  only  a  few  suggestions  upon  one  or 
two  other  points,  and  first  with  regard  to  illustra- 
tions. The  Christian  sermon  deals  with  all  life,  and 
may  draw  its  illustrations  from  the  widest  range. 
The  first  necessity  of  illustration  is  that  it  should  be 
true,  that  is,  that  it  should  have  real  relations  to  the 
subject  vfhich  it  illustrates.  An  illustration  is  prop- 
erly used  in  preaching  either  to  give  clearness  or  to 
give  splendor  to  the  utterance  of  truth.  Both  ob- 
jects, I  believe,  are  legitimate.  Ruskin  says  that  "  all 
noble  ornament  is  the  expression  of  man's  delight  in 
God's  work."  And  so  I  think  that  we  confine  too 
much  the  office  of  illustration  if  we  give  it  only  the 
duty  of  making  truth  clear  to  the  understanding,  and 
do  not  also  allow  it  the  privilege  of  making  truth 
glorious  to  the  imagination.  Archbishop  Whately's 
illustrations  are  of  the  first  sort,  Jeremy  Taylor's  of 
the  second.  The  ornament  that  fills  his  sermons  is 
almost  always  the  expression  of  man's  delight  in 
God's  truth.  But  both  sorts  of  illustration,  as  you 
see,  have  this  characteristic :  they  exist  for  the  truth. 


176        LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

They  are  not  counted  of  value  for  themselves.  That 
is  the  test  of  illustration  which  you  ought  to  apply 
unsparingly.  Does  it  call  attention  to  or  call  atten- 
tion away  from  my  truth?  If  the  latter,  cut  it  off 
without  a  hesitation.  The  prettier  it  is  the  worse  it 
is.  Here  as  everywhere  the  love  of  truth  for  itself 
is  the  only  salvation.  Love  the  truth,  and  then,  for 
your  people's  good  and  for  your  own  deUght,  make  it 
as  beautiful  as  you  can. 

As  to  the  subjects  from  which  illustrations  may  be 
drawn,  I  cannot  but  think  that  it  would  be  well  if  we 
made  a  much  greater  use  of  the  history  of  the  Old 
Testament  to  illustrate  the  Gospel  of  the  New.  And 
for  these  reasons :  first,  that  the  two  have  an  essential 
connection  with  each  other  and  so  they  come  together 
with  peculiar  sympathy  and  fitness ;  second,  that  the 
very  antiquity  of  that  history  makes  it  timeless  and 
passionless,  as  it  were,  and  so  enables  us  to  use  it 
purely  as  ornament  or  illustration,  without  the  dan- 
ger of  its  introducing  side  issues  from  its  own  life  j 
and  thirdly,  we  should  thus  revive  and  preserve 
people's  acquaintance  with  the  Old  Testament,  which 
is  always  falling  into  decay.  The  second  of  these 
reasons  shows  where  the  weak  spot  is  in  the  illus- 
tration drawn  from  the  events  of  the  current  hour, 
which  is  otherwise  so  strong  and  vivid.  It  is  difficult 
to  make  it  serve  purely  as  an  illustration.  It  brings 
in  its  own  associations  and  prejudices.     It  is  too  alive. 


THE  MAKING    OF  THE  SERMON.  Vll 

It  is  as  if  you  made  the  cornice  of  your  house  out  of 
wood  with  so  much  life  in  it  that  it  sprouted  after  it 
was  up,  and  hid  with  its  foHage  the  architecture 
which  it  was  intended  only  to  display.  It  was  hard 
dui-ing  the  rebellion  to  illustrate  the  Christian  war- 
fare by  the  then  familiar  story  of  the  soldier's  Hfe 
without  hearing  through  the  sermon  the  drums  of 
the  Potomac,  and  seeing  the  spires  of  Richmond 
quite  as  much  as  the  walls  of  the  New  Jerusalem  in 
the  distance.  Besides  this,  an  over-eagerness  to  catch 
the  last  sensation  to  decorate  your  sermon  with  gives 
a  certain  cheapness  to  your  pulpit  work.  With  cau- 
tions such  as  these  in  mind,  we  cannot  still  afford  to 
lose  the  freshness  and  reahty  which  comes  from  let- 
ting men  see  the  eternal  truths  shining  through  the 
familiar  windows  of  to-day,  and  making  them  under- 
stand that  the  world  is  as  full  of  parables  as  it  was 
when  Jesus  painted  the  picture  of  the  vineyard  be- 
tween Jerusalem  and  Shechem,  or  took  his  text  from 
the  recent  terrible  accident  at  Siloam. 

One  prevalent  impression  about  sermons  which 
prevails  now  in  reaction  from  an  old  and  disagree- 
able method  is,  I  think,  mistaken.  In  the  desire  to 
make  a  sermon  seem  free  and  spontaneous  there  is  a 
prevalent  dislike  to  giving  it  its  necessary  formal 
structure  and  organism.  The  statement  of  the  sub- 
ject, the  division  into  heads,  the  recapitulation  at  the 
end,  aU  the  scaffolding  and  anatomy  of  a  sermon  is 


178  LECTURES   ON  FEE  ACHING. 

out  of  favor,  and  there  are  many  very  good  jests 
about  it.  I  can  only  say  that  I  have  come  to  fear  it 
less  and  less.  The  escape  from  it  must  be  not  nega- 
tive but  positive.  The  true  way  to  get  rid  of  the 
boniness  of  your  sermon  is  not  by  leaving  out  the 
skeleton,  but  by  clothing  it  with  flesh.  True  liberty 
in  writing  comes  by  law,  and  the  more  thoroughly 
the  outlines  of  your  work  are  laid  out  the  more  freely 
your  sermon  will  flow,  like  an  unwasted  stream  be- 
tween its  well-built  banks.  I  think  that  most  con- 
gregations welcome,  and  are  not  offended  by  clear, 
precise  statements  of  the  course  which  a  sermon  is 
going  to  pursue,  carefully  marked  division  of  its 
thoughts,  and,  above  all,  full  recapitulation  of  its 
argument  at  the  close.  A  sermon  is  not  like  a  pic- 
ture which,  once  painted,  stands  altogether  before  the 
eye.  Its  parts  elude  the  memory,  and  it  is  good  be- 
fore you  close  to  gather  all  the  parts  together,  and  as 
briefly  as  you  can  set  them  as  one  completed  whole 
before  your  hearer's  mind.  Leave  to  the  ordinary 
Sunday-school  address  its  unquestioned  privilege  of 
inconsequence  and  incoherence.  But  give  your  ser- 
mon an  orderly  cohsistent  progress,  and  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  let  your  hearers  see  it  distinctly,  for  it  will 
help  them  first  to  understand  and  then  to  remembei' 
what  you  say. 

Of  oratory,  and  all  the  marvellous  mysterious  ways 
of  those  who  teach  it,  I  dare  say  nothing.     I  believe 


THE  MAKING   OF  THE  SERMON.  179 

in  the  true  elocution  teacher,  as  I  believe  in  the  exist- 
ence of  Halley's  comet,  which  comes  into  sight  of 
this  earth  once  in  about  seventy-six  years.  But 
whatever  you  may  learn  or  unlearn  from  him  to 
I  your  advantage,  the  real  power  of  your  oratory  must 
be  youi'  own  intelligent  delight  in  what  3^ou  are  do- 
ing. Let  your  pulpit  be  to  you  what  his  studio  is  to 
the  artist,  or  his  court  room  to  the  lawyer,  or  his 
laboratory  to  the  chemist,  or  the  broad  field  with  its 
bugles  and  banners  to  the  soldier  5  only  far  more  sa- 
credly let  your  pulpit  be  this  to  you,  and  you  have  the 
power  which  is  to  all  rules  what  the  soul  is  to  the  body. 
You  have  enthusiasm  which  is  the  breath  of  life. 

I  have  spoken  to-day  about  the  making  of  a  ser- 
mon. I  alluded  at  the  beginning  of  one  lecture  to  a 
young  man  whom  I  saw  just  entering  on  his  work. 
To-day  I  have  been  thinking  of  one  whom  I  knew — 
nay,  one  whom  I  know — who  finished  his  preaching 
years  ago  and  went  to  God.  How  does  all  this  seem 
to  him? — these  rules  and  regulations  of  the  preach- 
er's art,  which  he  once  studied  as  we  are  studying 
them  now.  Let  us  not  doubt,  my  friends,  that  while 
he  has  seen  a  glory  and  strength  in  the  truth  which 
we  preach  such  as  we  never  have  conceived,  he  has 
seen  also  that  no  expedient  which  can  make  that 
truth  a  little  more  effective  in  its  presentation  to  the 
world  is  trivial,  or  undignified,  or  unworthy  of  the 
patient  care  and  study  of  the  minister  of  Christ. 


THE  CONGREGATION. 


T  HAVE  said  what  I  had  to  say  about  the  preacher 
-*-  and  about  the  sermon.  To-day  I  want  to  speak 
to  you  about  the  congregation.  There  is  something 
remarkable  in  the  way  in  which  a  minister  talks 
about  "my  congregation."  They  evidently  come  to 
seem  to  him  different  from  the  rest  of  humankind. 
There  is  the  rest  of  our  race,  in  Europe,  Asia,  Africa, 
and  America,  and  the  Islands  of  the  Sea,  and  then 
there  is  "  my  congregation."  A  man  begins  the  hab- 
it the  moment  he  is  settled  in  a  parish.  However 
young,  however  inexperienced  he  may  be,  he  at  once 
takes  possession  of  that  fraction  of  the  human  family 
and  holds  it  with  a  sense  of  ownership.  He  immedi- 
ately assumes  certain  fictions  concerning  them.  He 
takes  it  for  granted  that  they  listen  to  his  words 
with  a  deference  quite  irrespective  of  the  value  of 
the  words  themselves.  He  talks  majestically  about 
^'  what  I  tell  my  congregation,"  as  if  there  were  some 
basis  upon  which  they  received  his  teachings  quite 
different  from  that  upon  which  other  intelligent  men 

180 


THE   CONGBEGATION.  181 

listen  to  one  who  takes  his  place  before  them  as  their 
teacher.  He  supposes  them  to  be  subject  to  emo- 
tions which  he  expects  of  no  one  else.  He  thinks 
that,  in  some  mysterious  way,  their  property  as  well 
as  their  intelligence  is  subject  to  his  demand,  to  be 
handed  over  to  him  when  he  shall  tell  them  that  he 
has  found  a  good  use  to  which  to  put  it.  He  imag- 
ines that,  though  they  are  as  clear-sighted  as  other 
people,  little  devices  of  his  which  are  perfectly  plain 
to  everybody  else  impose  upon  them  perfectly.  He 
talks  about  them  so  unnaturally  that  we  are  almost 
surprised  when  we  ask  their  names  and  find  that 
they  are  men  and  women  whom  we  know,  men  and 
women  who  are  living  ordinary  lives  and  judging 
people  and  things  by  ordinary  standards,  with  all  the 
varieties  of  character  and  ways  which  any  such  group 
must  have,  whom  he  has  separated  from  the  rest  of 
humanity  and  distinguished  by  their  relation  to  him- 
self and  calls  "  my  congregation." 

I  think  that  a  good  deal  of  the  unreality  of  clerical 
life  comes  from  this  feeling  of  ministers  about  their 
congregations.  I  have  known  many  ministers  who 
were  frank  and  simple  and  unreserved  with  other 
people  for  whom  they  did  not  feel  a  responsibility, 
but  who  threw  around  themselves  a  cloak  of  fictions 
and  reserves  the  moment  that  they  met  a  parish- 
ioner. They  were  willing  to  let  the  stranger  clearly 
see  that  there  were  many  things  in  religion  and  the- 


182        LECTVBES   ON  PREACHING. 

ology  which  they  did  not  know  at  all,  many  other 
questions  on  which  they  were  in  doubt,  points  of 
their  church's  faith  which  they  thought  unimportant 
to  salvation,  methods  of  their  church's  policy  which 
they  thought  injudicious.  All  this  they  would  say 
freely  as  they  talked  with  the  wolf  over  the  sheepfold 
wall,  or  with  some  sheep  in  the  next  flock;  but  in 
their  own  flock  they  held  theii'  peace,  or  said  that 
everything  was  right,  and  never  dreamed  that  their 
flock  saw  through  their  feeble  cautiousness.  The  re- 
sult of  all  this  has  sometimes  been  that  parishioners 
have  trusted  other  men  more  than  their  minister  just 
because  he  was  their  minister,  and  have  gone  with 
their  troublesome  questions  and  dark  experiences  to 
some  one  who  should  speak  of  them  freely  because 
he  should  not  feel  that  he  was  speaking  to  a  member 
of  his  congregation. 

It  is  easy  to  point  out  what  are  the  causes  of  this 
feeling  which  we  thus  see  has  its  dangers.  The  bad 
part  in  it  is  a  love  of  power.  The  better  part  is  an 
anxious  sense  of  responsibility,  made  more  anxious  by 
the  true  affection  which  grows  up  in  the  preacher's 
heart.  It  is  almost  a  parental  feeling  in  its  worse 
as  in  its  better  features,  in  its  partialness  and  jeal- 
ousy as  well  as  in  its  devotion  and  love.  But  besides 
these  there  is  another  element  in  the  view  which  the 
preacher  takes  of  his  congregation  which  I  beg  you 
to  observe  and  think  about.     It  is  the  way  in  which 


THE  CONGREGATION.  183 

he  assumes  a  difference  in  the  character  of  people 
when  they  are  massed  together  from  any  which  they 
had  when  they  were  looked  at  separately.  This  is 
the  real  meaning  of  the  tone  which  is  in  that  phrase 
"  my  congregation."  It  is  to  the  minister  a  unit  of 
a  wholly  novel  sort.  There  is  something  in  the  con- 
gregation which  is  not  in  the  men  and  women  as  he 
knows  them  in  their  separate  humanities,  something 
in  the  aggregate  which  was  not  in  the  individuals,  a 
character  in  the  whole  which  was  not  in  the  parts. 
This  is  the  reason  why  he  can  group  them  in  his 
thought  as  a  peculiar  people,  hold  them  in  his  hand 
as  a  new  human  unity,  his  congregation. 

And  no  doubt  he  is  partly  right.  There  is  a  prin- 
ciple underneath  the  feeling  by  which  he  vaguely 
works.  A  multitude  of  people  gathered  for  a  special 
purpose  and  absorbed  for  the  time  into  a  common  in- 
terest has  a  new  character  which  is  not  in  any  of  the 
individuals  which  compose  it.  If  you  are  a  speaker 
addressing  a  crowd  you  feel  that.  You  say  things  to 
them  without  hesitation  that  would  seem  either  too 
bold  or  too  simple  to  say  to  any  man  among  them  if 
you  talked  with  him  face  to  face.  If  you  are  a  spec- 
tator and  watch  a  crowd  while  some  one  else  is  speak- 
ing to  it,  you  can  feel  the  same  thing.  You  can  see 
emotions  run  through  the  mass  that  no  one  man  there 
would  have  deigned  to  show  or  submitted  to  feel  if  he 
could  have  helped  it.     The  crowd  will  laugh  at  jokes 


184  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

which  every  man  in  the  crowd  would  have  despised, 
and  be  melted  by  mawkish  pathos  that  would  not 
have  extorted  a  tear  from  the  weakest  of  them  by  him- 
self. Imagine  Peter  the  Hermit  sitting  down  alone 
with  a  man  to  fire  him  up  for  a  crusade.  Probably 
all  this  is  less  true  of  one  of  our  New  England  audi- 
ences than  of  any  other  that  is  ever  collected  in  our 
land.  In  it  every  man  keeps  guard  over  his  individ- 
uality and  does  not  easily  let  it  sink  in  the  character 
of  the  multitude.  And  yet  we  are  men  and  women 
even  here,  and  the  universal  laws  of  human  nature 
do  work  even  among  us.  And  this  is  a  law  of  nature 
which  aU  men  have  observed.  "  It  is  a  strange  thing 
to  say/'  says  Arthur  Helps  in  "  Realmah,"  "  but  when 
the  number  of  any  public  body  exceeds  that  of  forty 
or  fifty,  the  whole  assembly  has  an  element  of  joyous 
childhood  in  it,  and  each  member  revives  at  times 
the  glad,  mischievous  nature  of  his  schoolboy  days." 
Canning  used  to  say  that  the  House  of  Commons  as 
a  body  had  better  taste  than  the  man  of  the  best 
taste  in  it,  and  Macaulay  was  much  inclined  to  think 
that  Canning  was  right. 

What  are  the  elements  of  this  new  character  which 
belongs  to  a  congregation,  a  company  of  men  ?  Two 
of  them  have  been  suggested  in  the  two  instances 
which  I  have  just  quoted, — the  spontaneousness  and 
liberty,  and  the  higher  standard  of  thought  and  taste. 
It  is  not  hard  to  see  what  some  of  the  other  elements 


THE  CONGREGATION.  185 

are.  There  is  no  doubt  greater  receptivity  than  there 
is  in  the  individual.  Many  of  the  sources  of  antag- 
onism are  removed.  The  tendency  to  irritation  is  pii'i 
to  rest.  The  pride  of  argument  is  not  there  j  or  is 
modified  by  the  fact  that  no  other  man  can  hear  the 
argument,  because  it  cannot  speak  a  word,  but  must 
go  on  in  a  man's  own  silent  soul.  It  is  easier  to  give 
way  when  you  sit  undistinguished  in  an  audience, 
and  your  next  neighbor  cannot  see  the  moment  when 
you  yield.  The  surrender  loses  half  its  hardness 
when  you  have  no  sword  to  surrender  and  no  flag  to 
run  down.  And,  besides  this,  we  have  all  felt  how 
the  silent  multitude  in  the  midst  of  which  we  sit  or 
stand  becomes  ideal  and  heroic  to  us.  We  feel  as  if 
it  were  listening  without  prejudice,  and  responding 
unselfishly  and  nobly.  So  we  are  lifted  up  to  our 
best  by  the  buoyancy  of  the  mass  in  which  we  have 
been  merged.  It  may  be  a  delusion.  Each  of  these 
silent  men  may  be  thinking  and  feeling  meanly,  but 
probably  each  of  them  has  felt  the  elevation  of  the 
mass  about  him  of  which  we  are  one  particle,  and 
so  is  lifting  and  lifted  just  as  we  are.  Who  can  say 
which  drops  in  the  great  sweep  of  the  tide  are  borne, 
and  which  bear  others  toward  the  shore,  on  which 
they  aU  rise  together  ? 

This,  then,  is  the  good  quality  in  the  character  of 
the  congregation.  It  produces  what  in  general  we 
call  responsiveness.     The  compensating  quality  which 


186        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

takes  away  part  of  the  value  of  this  one  is  its  irre- 
sponsibility. The  audience  is  quick  to  feel,  but  slow 
DO  decide.  The  men  who  make  up  the  audience, 
taken  one  by  one,  are  slower  to  feel  an  argument  or 
an  appeal  to  their  higher  nature,  but  when  they  are 
convinced  or  touched,  it  is  comparatively  easy  to 
waken  the  conscience,  and  make  them  see  the  neces- 
sity of  action.  I  have  often  heard  the  minister's 
appeals  compared  to  the  lawyer's  addresses  to  the 
jury.  "Look,"  men  say,  "  the  lawyer  pleads,  and  gets 
his  verdict.  You  plead  a  hundred  times.  You  argue 
week  after  week,  and  men  will  not  decide  that  Chris- 
tianity is  true,  nor  steadfastly  resolve  to  lead  a  new 
life."  The  fallacy  is  obvious.  We  are  like  lawyers 
pleading  before  a  jury  which  in  the  fii'st  place  feels 
itself  under  no  compulsion  to  decide  at  all;  and  in 
the  second  place,  if  it  decides  as  we  are  urging  it, 
must  change  its  life,  break  off  its  habits,  and  make 
new  ones,  which  it  does  not  like  to  contemplate. 
There  is  no  likeness  between  it  and  that  body  of 
twelve  men  who  cannot  go  home  till  they  decide  one 
way  or  the  other,  and  who  have  no  selfish  interest  to 
bias  their  decision.  No  wonder  that  our  jury  listens 
to  us  as  long  as  it  pleases,  perhaps  trembles  a  little 
when  we  are  most  true  and  powerful,  and  then,  like 
Felix,  who  was  both  judge  and  jury  to  St.  Paul,  shuts 
up  the  courts  and  departs  with  only  the  dimmest  feel- 


THE   CONGREGATION.  187 

ing  of  responsibility,  saying,  "Go  thy  way  for  this 
time.     I  will  hear  thee  again  of  this  matter." 

The  result  of  all  this  is  that  in  the  congregation 
you  have  something  very  near  the  general  humanity. 
You  have  human  nature  as  it  appears  in  its  largest 
contemplation.  Personal  peculiarities  have  disap- 
peared and  man  simply  as  man  is  before  you.  This 
is  a  great  advantage  to  the  preacher.  "It  is  more 
easy  to  know  man  in  general  than  to  know  a  man  in 
particular,"  said  La  Rochefoucauld.  If  in  the  crowd 
to  whom  you  preach  you  saw  every  man  not  merely 
in  general  but  in  particular,  if  each  sat  there  with  his 
idiosyncrasies  bristling  aU  over  him,  how  could  you 
preach  ?  There  are  some  preachers,  I  think,  who  are 
ineffective  from  a  certain  incapacity  of  this  larger 
general  sight  of  humanity  which  a  congregation 
ought  to  inspire.  It  has  been  said  of  the  French 
preachers  that  Bossuet  knew  man  better  than  men, 
but  Fenelon  knew  both  man  and  men.  There  are 
some  preachers  who  seem  to  know  men,  but  hardly  to 
know  or  to  be  touched  by  man  at  all.  They  are 
ready  with  special  sympathies  and  with  minute  ad- 
vice in  the  dilemmas  of  detail  which  men  encounter ; 
but  the  sight  of  their  race  does  not  rouse  them,  and 
they  are  not  able  to  bring  to  bear  upon  a  people 
those  universal  and  eternal  motives  of  the  highest 
human  action  which,  however  they  may  distribute 


188        LECTUBES  ON  PREACHING. 

themselves  into  special  motives  for  special  acts,  still 
have  a  real  unity  and  are  the  springs  of  many  good- 
iiesses  of  many  kinds.  Such  men  may  have  a  cer- 
tain fitness  to  be  the  spiritual  advisers  of  individuals, 
but  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  they  can  be  powerful 
preachers  to  mankind. 

I  think  that  it  is  almost  necessary  for  a  man  to 
preach  sometimes  to  congregations  which  he  does  not 
know,  in  order  to  keep  this  impression  of  preach- 
ing to  humanity,  and  so  to  keep  the  truth  which  he 
preaches  as  large  as  it  ought  to  be.  He  who  minis- 
ters to  the  same  people  always,  knowing  them  mi- 
nutely, is  apt  to  let  his  preaching  grow  minute,  to 
forget  the  world,  and  to  make  the  same  mistakes 
about  the  Gospel  that  one  would  make  about  the 
force  of  gravitation  if  he  came  to  consider  it  a  special 
arrangement  made  for  these  few  operations  which  it 
accomphshes  within  his  own  house.  I  think  there  are 
few  inspirations,  few  tonics  for  a  minister's  life  better 
than,  when  he  is  fretted  and  disheartened  with  a  hun- 
dred little  worries,  to  go  and  preach  to  a  congregation 
in  which  he  does  not  know  a  face.  As  he  stands  up 
and  looks  across  them  before  he  begins  his  sermon,  it 
is  like  looking  the  race  in  the  face.  All  the  nobleness 
and  responsibihty  of  his  vocation  comes  to  him.  It 
is  the  feeling  which  one  has  had  sometimes  in  travel- 
ling when  he  has  passed  through  a  great  town  whose 
name  he  did  not  even  learn.     There  were  men,  but 


THE  CONGREGATION.  189 

uot  one  man  lie  knew ;  houses,  shops,  churches,  bank, 
post-office,  business  and  pleasure,  but  none  of  them 
individualized  to  him  by  any  personal  interest.  It  i^ 
human  life  in  general,  and  often  has  a  solemnity  for 
h\vc\  which  the  human  lives  which  he  knows  in  par- 
ticular have  lost.  And  this  is  what  we  often  find  in 
some  strange  pulpit,  facing  some  congregation  wholly 
made  up  of  strangers. 

But  this  should  be  occasional.  A  constant  travel- 
ling among  unknown  towns  would  no  doubt  weaken 
and  perhaps  destroy  our  sense  of  humanity  alto- 
gether. There  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  good  for  a 
man  that  his  knowledge  of  a  congregation  should  be 
primarily  and  principally  the  knowledge  of  his  own 
congregation,  certain  dangers  of  a  too  exclusive  re- 
lationship being  obviated  by  preaching  sometimes 
where  the  people  are  all  strange.  It  is  remarkable 
how  many  of  the  great  preachers  of  the  world  are  in- 
separably associated  with  the  places  where  their  work 
was  done,  where  perhaps  all  their  life  was  lived.  In 
many  cases  their  place  has  passed  into  their  name  as 
if  it  were  a  true  part  of  themselves.  Chrysostom  of 
Constantinople,  Augustine  of  Hippo,  Savonarola  of 
Florence,  Baxter  of  Kidderminster,  Arnold  of  Rugby, 
Robertson  of  Brighton,  Chalmers  of  Glasgow,  and  in 
our  New  England  a  multitude  of  such  associations 
which  have  become  historic  and  compel  us  always  to 
think  of  the  man  with  the  place  and  of  the  place  with 


■> 


190        LECTURES  ON  PREACRING. 

the  man.  Everywhere  a  man  must  have  his  place. 
The  disciples  are  sometimes  set  before  us  as  if  our 
pastoral  life  of  modern  times  were  an  entire  depart- 
ure from  their  methods  5  and  yet  they  had  their  pas- 
torates. Think  of  St.  Paul  at  Ephesus.  Think  of  St. 
John  in  the  same  city.  Think  of  St.  James  at  Jeru- 
salem. The  same  necessity,  may  we  not  say,  which 
required  that  the  Incarnation  should  bring  divinity, 
not  into  humanity  in  general,  but  into  some  special 
human  circle,  into  a  nation,  a  tribe,  a  family,  requires 
that  he  who  would  bear  fruit  everywhere  for  human- 
ity should  root  himself  into  some  special  plot  of  hu- 
man life  and  draw  out  the  richness  of  the  earth  by 
which  he  is  to  live  at  some  one  special  point.  There 
is  nothing  better  in  a  clergyman's  life  than  to  feel 
constantly  that  through  his  congregation  he  is  get- 
ting at  his  race.  Certainly  the  long  pastorates  of 
other  days  were  rich  in  the  knowledge  of  human 
nature,  in  a  very  intimate  relation  with  humanity. 
These  three  rules  seem  to  have  in  them  the  practical 
sum  of  the  whole  matter.  I  beg  you  to  remember 
them  and  apply  them  with  all  the  wisdom  that  God 
gives  you.  First.  Have  as  few  congregations  as  you 
can.  Second.  Know  your  congregation  as  thor- 
oughly as  you  can.  Third.  Know  your  congregation 
so  largely  and  deeply  that  in  knowing  it  you  shall 
know  humanity. 

I  have  hngered  too  long  upon  the  congregation  as 


THE  CONGREGATION.  .  191 

a  whole.  Let  me  go  on  to  speak  of  that  which  ap- 
pears  to  every  minister  as  he  takes  a  certain  congre- 
gation to  be  his  congregation  and  comes  to  know 
them  very  well.  Then  the  unity  in  which  he  saw 
them  the  first  time  he  stood  before  them  breaks  up, 
and  they  are  divided  into  various  classes.  Between 
that  one  great  gathering  which  fills  the  house  and  the 
individuals  of  whom  it  is  composed  there  are  divi- 
sions into  various  groups,  which,  with  certain  modifi- 
cations here  and  there,  appear  in  every  congregation 
in  the  land.     Let  us  see  what  they  are. 

First  and  most  prominent  in  every  congregation 
there  are  some  persons  who  peculiarly  represent  it 
to  the  world.  They  live  in  the  Chui'ch,  as  it  were. 
Their  whole  life  is  bound  up  in  its  interests.  They 
may  be  church  officers  or  not.  They  are  part  of  its 
history  and  of  its  present  life.  The  congregation 
^oes  by  their  name  almost  as  readily  as,  in  your  Con- 
gregational fashion,  by  the  minister's.  They  are  the 
persons  to  whom  every  new  enterprise  in  church  life 
looks  first  for  approval  and  then  for  the  means  of  its 
execution.  They  are  what  are  sometimes  called  the 
"pillars  of  the  Church."  And  such  people  are  very 
valuable.  Often  their  lives  are  very  noble  and  de- 
voted. There  are  people  so  prominently  representa- 
tive of  churches  whose  life  is  as  truly  a  consecrated 
life,  with  an  ordination  of  its  own,  as  any  minister's. 
They  give  a  solidity  and  permanence  to  the  congre- 


192  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

gation,  preserve  its  continuity  and  identity  in  the 
midst  of  the  continual  changes  of  these  parts  of  it 
which  are  less  firmly  fixed.  They  gather  their 
strength  about  the  minister.  They  save  him  from 
falling  into  that  heresy  which  has  beset  all  Christian 
history  and  been  the  fruitful  source  of  many  kinds 
of  woes,  the  heresy  that  the  clergyman  is  the  Church. 
They  constantly  remind  him  that  the  people  are  the 
Church,  and  that  he  is  the  Church's  servant.  I  rec- 
ognize the  value  of  this  element  in  the  congregation 
very  heartily.  I  think  that  every  parish  needs  such 
laymen.  It  would  be  a  very  loose  and  incoherent 
thing  without  them.  But  still  I  want  you  to  notice 
the  dangers  that  may  come  in  connection  with  the 
special  prominence  and  special  usefulness  of  a  few 
members  of  the  Church.  There  is  chance  always  of 
the  Church  becoming  a  sort  of  club,  providing  for  the 
wants,  perhaps,  indeed,  the  highest  spiritual  wants,  of 
a  few,  but  forgetting  that  it  has  the  world  about  it 
and  was  meant  for  all  men.  This  is  a  danger  which 
belongs  to  the  very  fact  of  a  recognized  body  called 
the  congregation.  It  is  a  danger  which  is  intensified 
when  in  the  centre  of  that  body  there  is  a  core  which 
emphasizes  all  its  qualities  and  spirit,  the  congrega- 
tion of  the  congregation.  The  congregation  ought 
to  be  exclusive  only,  as  our  old  professor  of  theology 
used  to  say  of  the  Gospel,  as  the  light  in  the  Pharos 
was  covered  with  glass  merely  that  it  might  burn  the 


THE   CONGBEGATION.  193 

more  brightly  and  shed  the  more  light  abroad.  Re- 
member this  danger.  Give  much  time  and  thought 
and  care  to  the  outskirts  of  your  parish,  to  its  loosft 
and  ragged  fringes;  seek  the  people  who  just  drift 
within  your  influence,  and  who  will  drift  away 
again,  if  your  kind,  strong  hand  is  not  upon  them. 
Do  not  spend  too  much  time  in  the  safe  sheepfold 
where  the  ninety-nine  are  secure,  while  there  are 
sheep  upon  the  mountains.  Be  sure  that  nothing 
will  make  the  core  and  heart  of  your  congregation  so 
solid  as  a  strong  drawing  inward  of  its  loose  circum- 
ference. The  strong  and  settled  men  of  your  chui'ch 
will  value  you  and  your  usefulness  to  them  more 
highly  if  they  see  you  busy  among  the  wretched,  the 
careless,  and  what  men  dare  to  call  the  worthless 
souls.  And  there  is  another  danger,  I  think,  which 
the  congregation  in  the  congregation  brings  with  it. 
The  laymen  who  are  most  active  and  interested  in 
church  life  are  very  often  not  the  most  receptive  hear- 
ers. They  are  apt  to  take  a  few  truths  for  settled, 
and,  realizing  them  very  fully,  using  them  in  their 
church  work  constantly,  to  ask  no  more,  indeed  to  be 
hardly  open  to  any  more.  They  are  half  clergymen, 
half  laymen,  without  the  full  receptivity  and  mental 
enterprise  which  belongs  to  either.  This  is  the  rea- 
son why  thej^  sometimes  become  dogmatic,  and  not 
merely  do  not  care  themselves  to  speculate  or  learn, 
but,  with  an  honest  and  narrow  fear,  begrudge  the 


194  LECTUBES  ON  PREACHING. 

clergy  and  their  fellow-laymen  an  eagerness  for  truth 
which  overruns  their  own  settled  lines.  The  strong- 
( ^5t  bigotry  is  often  found  among  theological  laymen 
rather  than  among  clergymen.  The  pillars  of  the 
Church  are  apt  to  be  like  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  be- 
yond which  no  man  might  sail.  Dean  Stanley,  in  an 
essay  upon  the  connection  of  Church  and  Btate,  says 
of  the  lay  element  in  Church  Synods :  "  The  laymen 
who  as  a  general  rule  figure  in  such  assemblies  do 
not  represent  the  true  lay  mind  of  the  Church,  still 
less  the  lay  intelligence  of  the  whole  country.  They 
are  often  excellent  men,  given  to  good  works,  but 
they  are  also  usually  the  partisans  of  some  special 
clerical  school  5  they  are,  in  short,  clergymen  under 
another  form  rather  than  the  real  laity  themselves." 
He  is  writing  on  an  Enghsh  subject,  but  his  words 
describe  a  danger  which  we  in  America  can  recognize, 
and  which  makes  us  glad  to  go  on  and  find  in  the 
congregation  other  elements  besides  this  most  valu- 
able, this  indispensable  one  of  which  I  have  been 
speaking. 

To  pass  at  once,  then,  to  the  other  extreme,  there  is 
in  very  many,  if  not  in  all,  congregations  in  these 
days  what  we  may  call  the  supercilious  hearer.  He 
is  a  man  who  for  some  reason  comes  to  church,  but  is 
out  of  sympathy  with  what  goes  on  there.  He  is 
sceptical  about  the  truth  of  what  we  believe  and 
preach.     You  come  to  know  that  hearer.     You  are 


THE   CONGREGATION.  195 

sure  tliat  he  is  critical.  You  are  aware  that  some 
safe,  sonorous,  and  unmeaning  statements,  which 
some  of  youi*  people  will  take  because  they  have  the 
right  words  in  them  and  the  true  ring  about  them, 
he  seizes  on  the  moment  that  they  fall  from  your  lips 
and  tears  their  flimsiness  to  pieces  in  his  merciless 
mind.  Sometimes  your  heart  has  sunk  as  you  have 
said  some  foolish  thing  and  not  dared  to  look  him  in 
the  face,  but  felt  sure  that  it  has  not  escaped  him. 
In  one  of  his  Lent  discourses  Massillon  upbraids 
such  hearers.  "It  is  not  to  seek  corn,"  he  says, 
"that  you  come  into  Egypt.  It  is  to  seek  out  the 
nakedness  of  the  land.  Exploratores  Estis,  ut  vide- 
atis  infirmiora  terrse  hujus  venistis."  Now,  such  an 
element  in  a  congregation,  though  it  may  be  very 
small,  cannot  but  influence  the  preacher.  What  shall 
he  think  about  it?  He  ought  to  start,  it  seems  to 
me,  by  feeling  that  the  very  presence  of  such  men 
in  church  means  something.  They  have  not  come 
wholly,  certainly  they  will  not  come  continually,  for 
the  malicious  reason  which  Massillon  ascribes.  There 
is  some  better  and  deeper  cause,  even  though  the  man 
is  not  conscious  of  it  himself.  The  preacher  has  a 
right  to  believe  this,  and  so  the  man's  presence  may 
become  not  an  embarrassment  but  an  inspiration. 
And  then,  when  this  is  gained,  he  may  become  a  help 
in  other  ways.  He  keeps  the  atmosphere  of  the 
church  fresh.     He  makes  you  aware  as  you  preach  of 


196        LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

the  unbelief  wliicli  you  have  no  right  to  forget.  He 
incites  you  with  the  sense  of  difficulty  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  criticism.  A  parish  of  critics  would 
be  killing,  but  a  critic  here  and  there  is  tonic.  He 
keeps  the  walls  of  yoirr  church  from  growing  so  solid 
that  as  you  preach  you  cannot,  as  you  ought,  look 
through  them  as  if  they  were  glass,  and  preach  in  the 
present  remembrance  of  the  multitudes  who  never 
come  to  church,  and  do  not  know  your  truth,  and  yet 
for  whom  your  truth  is  just  as  true  and  might  be  just 
as  helpful  as  it  is  to  you.  This  man  makes  all  this 
real  to  you.  He  compels  you  to  remember  it.  It  is 
strange  how  the  general  scepticism  about  us  may  not 
put  us  out,  or  disturb  us  at  all,  while  a  special  case 
close  by  us  wiU  excite  us  and  waken  all  our  powers. 
It  is  like  the  way  in  which  you  can  go  on  with  your 
private  work  or  thought,  perfectly  well,  perhaps  all  the 
better,  for  the  general  roar  of  the  city,  while  a  single 
hammer  clanging  under  your  window  distracts  you 
and  compels  you  to  hear  it.  How  shall  such  a  critic 
enter  into  your  preaching?  What  influence  shall  it 
have  upon  your  sermon  to  know  that  he  is  there? 
The  influence,  I  should  say,  of  making  the  whole  ser- 
mon more  true  and  conscientious,  more  complete  in 
the  best  qualities  that  belong  to  all  good  sermons. 
But  not  the  influence  of  changing  the  sermon's  essen- 
tial character.  Preach  the  Gospel  all  the  more  se- 
riously, simply,  mightily  if  you  can,  because  of  the 


THE   CONGREGATION.  197 

unsympathetic  criticism  that  it  has  to  meet,  but  let  it 
be  the  same  Gospel  which  you  would  pour  into  ears 
hungry  to  receive  it.  The  two  faults  that  you  have 
to  avoid  in  preaching  to  unbelief  are,  Defiance  and 
Obsequience.  One  makes  the  unbeliever  hate  your 
truth,  and  the  other  makes  him  despise  it.  Be  frank, 
brave,  simple.  There  is  no  tiling  the  unbeliever  hon- 
ors Hke  belief.  Let  the  influence  of  your  supercilious 
and  sceptical  audience  be  primarily  upon  yourself, 
making  you  more  serious  and  eager,  then  let  it  come 
indirectly  into  your  sermon,  not  changing  its  topic,- 
but  filling  it  with  a  stronger  power  of  conviction  and 
of  love.  Of  course  I  am  speaking  now,  not  of  the 
sermons  in  which  one  specially  deals  wdth  some  spe- 
cial phase  of  scepticism,  but  only  of  the  general  tenor 
of  a  man's  preaching  in  view  of  this  part  of  his  con- 
gregation. 

The  next  element  in  the  congregation  of  which  I 
wish  to  speak  is  less  interesting  than  these  two ;  per- 
haps, also,  more  puzzling.  In  every  congregation 
there  are  many  people  who  come  to  church,  as  it 
seems,  purely  from  habit.  As  with  the  supercilious 
hearers,  it  is  hard  to  tell  why  they  come,  but  not  now 
because  of  any  positive  reason  why  they  should  not, 
but  merely  from  the  absence  of  any  reason  why  thej^ 
should.  Such  a  hearer  seems  to  be  docile,  but  his 
docility  consists  in  never  doubting  or  denying  what 
you  say.     He  has  probably  grown  up  in  the  Church. 


198        LECTURES  ON  FEE  ACHING. 

There  is  more  or  less  of  the  notion  of  respectability 
attaching  to  that  mysterious  impulse  which  every 
Sunday  turns  his  steps  towards  the  sanctuary.  Prob- 
ably if  you  could  get  deep  enough,  deeper  than  his 
own  consciousness  of  its  causes,  you  would  find  that 
some  vague  fear  had  something  to  do  at  least  with  the 
origin,  perhaps  with  the  continuance  of  this  strange 
habit.  He  is  no  unusual  sight.  He  comes  and  goes 
in  all  our  churches.  In  many  churches  it  seems  as  if 
such  as  he  made  up  a  large  part  of  the  congregation. 
Now  what  shall  we  say  of  him!  First  of  all,  cer- 
tainly, as  we  said  of  the  critic,  that  we  have  a  right 
to  believe  that  we  have  not  wholly  fathomed  the 
secret  of  his  presence.  At  least  we  may  hope  that, 
however  unconsciously  and  vaguely,  the  spirit  of  the 
place  has  reached  him.  Hoping  this,  you  may  expect 
to  see  the  unconscious  impulse  develop  into  a  con- 
scious seeking,  if  you  can  intensify  the  spirit  of  the 
place,  and  make  it  more  positive  about  him.  The 
form  in  which  the  change  takes  place  wiU  vary  ac- 
cording to  his  character.  It  may  be  sudden  and 
vehement;  a  conversion  as  true  and  picturesque  as 
any  that  comes  to  one  who,  after  years  of  brutal 
ignorance,  hears  for  the  first  tune  the  story  of  the 
Saviour.  Or  it  may  be  very  gradual,  the  slow,  stUl 
drawing  to  a  focus  and  quickening  into  fire  of  that 
heat  which  he  has  been  absorbing,  without  knowing 
it,  so  long.     There  are  two  effects  of  every  sermon. 


THE   CONGREGATION.  199 

one  special,  in  the  enforcement  of^a  single  thought, 
or  the  inculcation  of  a  single  duty  5  the  other  gen- 
eral, in  the  diffusion  of  a  sense  of  the  beauty  of  holi- 
ness and  the  value  of  truth.  To  the  second  of  these 
effects  this  routine  listener  has  been  susceptible  dur- 
ing many  a  service  and  sermon  that  seemed  to  pass 
across  him  like  the  wind.  However  the  awakening 
comes,  there  is  no  happier  sight  for  any  minister  to 
see.  It  puts  new  vigor  into  him,  makes  him  believe 
his  truth  by  one  more  evidence,  and  teaches  him  that 
lesson  which  the  preacher  must  know,  but  which  he 
can  only  learn  thoroughly  out  of  experiences  such  as 
this,  that  it  is  not  his  business  to  despair  of  anybody. 
Perhaps,  so  far  as  the  minister  is  concerned,  this  is 
the  final  cause  of  this  most  discoui'aging  being's  pres- 
ence in  the  congregation.  He  furnishes  the  minister 
now  and  then  with  an  encouragement  such  as  nobody 
but  himself  could  furnish.  And,  in  the  mean  time, 
sitting  there  with  the  calm  countenance  which  has 
faced  so  many  sermons,  if  anything  could  sting  the 
jaded  and  commonplace  minister  into  freshness  and 
pointedness,  it  would  seem  as  if  it  must  be  this  man's 
presence.  He  shames  you  and  inspires  you.  He 
makes  you  feel  your  responsibility,  and  makes  you 
eager  not  to  boast  of  it.  He  reminds  you  of  your 
duty  and  your  feebleness.  He  rebukes  anything  fan- 
tastic or  unreal  in  your  preaching.  He  tempts  your 
plainest,  and  directest,  and  tersest  truth.     There  is  a 


200  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

prayer  in  an  old  Russian  Liturgy  which  always 
seemed  to  me  the  very  model  of  the  minister's 
prayer,  which  I  wish  that  all  of  us  ministers  could 
learn  to  pray  continually,  and  which  this  man  in  your 
congregation  makes  you  pray  with  double  earnest- 
ness,—  ^'  O  Lord  and  Sovereign  of  my  Life,  take  from 
me  the  Spirit  of  idleness,  despair,  love  of  power,  and 
unprofitable  speaking."  \ 

But  from  these  classes  let  us  turn  to  that  part  of  a 
congregation  which  constitutes  its  chief  and  most  in- 
spiring interest.  I  mean  those  who  in  any  way  are 
to  be  characterized  as  earnest  seekers  after  truth.  It 
is  the  element  that  calls  out  all  that  is  best  in  a 
preacher.  Very  often  as  w^e  read  Christ's  teachings, 
we  can  almost  feel  His  eye  wandering  here  and  there 
across  the  motley  crowd  around  Him,  till  He  finds 
some  one  man  evidently  in  earnest,  and  then  the  dis- 
course sets  towards  him,  and  we  almost  feel  the  Sav- 
iour's heart  beat  with  anxiety  to  help  some  poor  for- 
gotten creature,  who  has  long  since  passed  out  of  the 
memory  of  man,  but  in  whom  on  that  day  so  long 
ago  He  saw  a  seeker.  And  we  may  say  with  cer- 
tainty that  any  man  who  has  not  in  him  the  power 
of  quick  response  to  the  appeal  of  spiritual  hunger 
lacks  a  fundamental  quality  of  the  true  preacher. 
There  are  some  men  who  cannot  see  bodily  pain  with- 
out a  longing  to  relieve  it  which  begets  an  ingenuity 
in  relieving  it,  out  of  which  springs  all  the  best  re- 


THE   CONGREGATION.  201 

finements  of  the  doctor's  art.  There  are  other  meu 
who,  just  in  the  same  way,  perceive  the  wants  and 
longings  of  men's  souls,  and  in  them  is  begotten  the 
holy  ingenuity  which  the  true  preacher  uses.  The 
soul  quickens  the  mind  to  its  most  complete  fertility. 
I  do  not  subdivide  this  class.  It  includes  the 
whole  range  of  personal  earnestness.  The  heart  just 
conscious  of  some  need,  all  ignorant  of  what  it  is,  dis- 
satisfied and  restless,  not  alone  from  the  unsatisfac- 
toriness  of  earthly  things,  but  hkewise '  from  a  true 
attraction  which  comes  to  it  from  a  higher  life,  this 
heart  is  close  beside  another  which  has  long  known 
the  truth  and  long  rested  on  the  love  of  Christ,  but 
yet  is  always  craving  a  deeper  truth  and  a  more 
unhindered  love.  The  two  hearts  belong  together. 
They  help  to  throw  the  same  kind  of  spirit  into  the 
congregation.  They  send  up  the  same  kind  of  in- 
spiration to  the  preacher.  It  is  good  always  to  think 
of  these  two  hearts  together,  to  count  your  congrega- 
tion, not  by  the  point  in  Christian  attainment  which 
you  conceive  them  to  have  reached,  but  by  the  spir- 
itual desire  and  eagerness  which  you  can  perceive  in 
them.  "We  may  mistake  the  first.  We  can  hardlj^ 
be  mistaken  about  the  second.  Here  must  be  the 
preacher's  real  encouragement.  Behind  aU  tests 
which  the  church-membership  lists  and  the  con- 
tribution boxes  can  furnish,  there  lies  the  knowl- 
edge,  which   comes   out    of    all    his  anxious  inter- 


202        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

course  with  them,  whether  these  men  and  women 
to  whom  he  preaches  are  seeking  for  more  truth  and 
higher  life.  It  seems  as  if  one  of  the  ways  in  which 
the  Lord's  beatitude  about  the  hungerers  and  thirsters 
after  righteousness  came  true  was  by  the  power  to 
help  them  which  the  very  sight  of  their  thirst  and 
hunger  gave  to  those  whom  God  had  sent  to  be  their 
feeders. 

And  I  believe  that  the  proportion  of  this  class  in 
the  general  congregation  is  much  greater  than  we  are 
apt  to  imagine.  In  all  Hfe,  and  nowhere  more  than 
in  what  we  say  about  the  Chui'ch  and  its  work,  cyni- 
cal and  disparaging  ideas  are  capable  of  much  more 
clever,  epigrammatic  statement  than  hopeful  ideas. 
So  they  have  easy  currency  and  impose  on  people. 
It  is  easy  to  draw  the  picture  of  the  faithless  or  friv- 
olous elements  in  a  congregation  till  it  appears  as  if 
the  whole  company  which  meets  every  Sunday  were 
in  an  elaborate  conspiracy  to  make  sport  of  itself,  as 
if  a  crowd  of  people  came  together  to  criticise  what 
none  of  them  believed,  and  to  endure  with  half -con- 
cealed impatience  what  none  of  them  cared  anything 
about.  But  such  a  picture,  the  more  cleverly  and 
sweepingly  it  is  drawn,  evidently  disproves  itself.  If 
that  were  the  congregation,  evidently  there  would 
not  long  be  any  congregation.  If  that  were  what 
their  meeting  meant,  evidently  they  would  not  meet 
again  and  again  year  after  year.     No  mere  momen- 


THE  CONGREGATION.  203 

turn  of  a  past  impulse  could  carry  along  so  dead  a 
weight.     No,  there  is  in  the  congregation  as  its  heart 
and  soul  a  craving  after  truth.     Believe  in  that.     Let 
it  give  an  expectant  look  to  the  wh'ole  congregation 
in  your  eyes.     Let  it  fill  your  study  as  you  write  at 
home.     And  if  among  the  elements  which  make  up 
your  great  congregation  you  grow  bewildered  and 
cannot  tell  to  which  one  you  ought  to  write  or  speak, 
I  do  not  hesitate  at  all  to  say  let  it  be  this  one.     This 
is  the  spirit  to  which  if  you  speak  you  will  be  sure  to 
speak  most  universally.     One  sermon  here  and  there 
to  those  who  are  entirely  indifferent,  beating  their 
sleepy  carelessness  awake ;  one  sermon  here  and  there 
to  those  who  are  scornfully  sceptical,  showing  them 
if  you  can  how  weak  their  superciliousness  is,  a  ser- 
mon fired  if  need  be  with  something  of  "  the  scorn  of 
scorn  " ;  one  sermon  here  and  there  perhaps  for  those 
rare  few  whose  life  seems  to  have  mastered  truth 
and  bathed  itself  in  love,  a  sermon  of  congratulation 
and  of  peace ;  but  almost  all  your  sermons  with  the 
seekers  in  your  eye.     Preaching  to  them  you  shall 
preach  to  all.     The   indifferent   shall  be   awakened 
into  hope;    the   scornful    shall  feel    some   sting   of 
shame;   and  before   those  who  are  most  conscious 
of  what  God  has  done  for  them  shall  open  visions 
of  what  greater  things  He  yet  may  do,  and  like  St. 
Paul  they  may  forget  the  things  behind  and  press 
forward  with  a  new  desire. 


204        LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

It  is  from  the  recognition  of  this  element  in  the 
congregation  that  the  minister's  perception  of  the 
necessary  variety  of  Christian  life  proceeds.  All 
earnestness  emphasizes  individuality.  So  long  as 
you  see  no  personal  anxiety  in  your  people's  eyes, 
you  may  calmly  form  your  own  plans  about  them, 
make  up  your  mind  what  they  are  to  be  made,  and  go 
to  work  to  make  them  that  with  certain  expectation 
that  they  will  take  your  truth  in  just  your  way,  and 
shape  their  lives  into  the  mould  which  you  lay  before 
them  as  if  it  showed  the  only  shape  of  Christian  char- 
acter. But  when  you  feel  the  anxious  wish  of  men 
and  women  really  seeking  after  truth,  when  the  gyj 
"What  must  I  do  to  be  saved?"  sounds  in  youi' 
quickened  ears  from  all  the  intent  and  silent  pews, 
then  is  the  time  when  you  really  learn  how  wide  and 
various  salvation  is.  The  revival  and  the  inquiry 
room  must  always  widen  a  man's  conception  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  they  are  only  the  emphatic  expressions  of 
what  is  always  present  and  may  always  be  felt  in 
every  congregation.  A  minister  once  said  to  me  how 
strange  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  been  preaching 
one  truth  in  one  language  for  years  and  yet  the 
people  who  came  to  him  moved  by  the  truth  he 
taught  never  conceived  it  in  his  form,  nor  used,  as 
they  told  him  their  experience,  the  language  in  which 
he  had  set  the  truth  before  them.  It  troubled  him. 
It  made  him  wonder  whether  the  language  he  had 


THE   CONGREGATION.  205 

used  was  wrong  and  false ;  perhaps,  also,  whether  the 
truth  which  they  stated  so  differently  really  was  the 
same  truth  which  he  had  tried  to  teach  them.  To  me 
it  rather  showed  that  there  must  have  been  truth  and 
noble  reality  about  his  words,  a  genuinely  feeding 
power,  that  men  should  have  taken  them  as  they  take 
the  healthy  corn  out  of  the  fields  and  turn  it  into 
all  kinds  of  strength  and  work.  However  that  may 
have  been,  the  more  truly  you  think  of  your  congre- 
gation as  seekers  after  salvation,  to  whom  you  are  to 
open  the  sacred  doors,  the  more  ready  you  will  be  to 
see  each  entering  into  a  salvation  peculiarly  his  own. 
You  will  be  glad  and  not  sorry  when  a  man  tells  you 
what  God  has  done  for  him,  and  only  gradually  you 
find  that  it  is  the  truth  which  you  told  him,  trans- 
formed into  some  new  shape  of  which  you  never 
dreamed,  that  is  the  new  treasure  of  his  life. 

These,  then,  are  the  elements  which  make  up  the 
congregation.  They  are  the  constant  factors.  In 
order  to  realize  the  congregation  entirely,  we  must 
think  of  it  as  not  closed,  but  open,  and  always  includ- 
ing some  people  who  as  mere  strangers  have  wan- 
dered in  and  taken  their  seats  among  the  people  who 
are  always  there.  They  suggest  the  outside  world. 
Their  unfamiliar  faces  remind  the  preacher  of  the 
general  humanity.  They  are  not  classified  at  all. 
They  are  simply  men  and  women.  I  think  it  is  a 
great  advantage  to  a  congregation  that  it  should  have 


206  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

such  an  element.  They  are  to  a  congregation  what 
the  few  people  who  came  into  contact  with  Jesus  who 
were  not  Jews — such  as  the  Syrophenician  woman, 
and  the  Centurion,  and  the  Greeks,  who  asked  to  see 
him — were  to  Christ's  disciples.  They  kept  men's 
conception  of  His  ministry  from  closing  in  tightly  to 
the  Jewish  people.  This  is  the  danger  of  the  country 
parish,  where  you  know  everybody  who  comes  into 
the  church.  You  forget  the  mission  to  the  world.  I 
know  no  safeguard  against  such  forgetfulness  but  a 
deep  sense  of  the  general  humanity  of  the  people  un- 
derneath their  special  characters,  which  shall  make 
them  true  specimens  of  the  race,  as  well  as  the  dis- 
tinct individuals,  whose  faces,  names,  and  ways  you 
know. 

These  are  the  elements,  then.  Now  mingle  these 
elements  in  your  mind,  and  ask  what  sort  of  body 
they  make.  What  will  be  the  general  characteristics 
of  this  assemblage,  so  heterogeneous  and  yet  with 
such  a  true  unity  in  it,  which  we  call  The  Congrega- 
tion ?  It  has  the  genuine  solidity  which  comes  from 
certain  fundamental  assumptions.  It  is  gathered  as 
a  Christian  gathering.  It  is  not  loose  and  incoherent, 
like  the  multitude  who  stood  about  Paul  on  the  Hill 
of  Mars,  merely  asking  in  general  for  what  is  new, 
or,  more  earnestly,  for  what  is  true.  It  has  a  positive 
character.  It  accepts  a  positive  authority.  And  yet 
it  is  alert  and  questioning.     The  truth  which  it  de- 


THE   CONGBEGATION.  207 

sires  is  open  to  abundant  varieties  of  conception  and 
application.  It  is  this  combination  of  solidity  with 
vitality,  this  harmonizing  of  settled  conditions  with 
constant  activity  and  gi'owth,  which  makes,  I  think, 
the  most  marked  character  of  the  Christian  congrega- 
tion.  It  is  an  institution  pervaded  with  individual 
life  5  it  is  an  assembly  of  individuals  to  which  has 
been  given  something  of  the  coherence  of  an  institu- 
tion. It  is  the  home  at  once  of  Faith  and  Thought. 
Try  to  keep  all  of  this  character  in  your  congrega- 
tion. Remember  both  its  institutional  character  and 
its  individual  character.  Do  not  try  to  make  it  a 
highly  organized  machine,  nor  to  let  it  merely  dissi- 
pate into  an  audience.  Make  it  one  without  losing 
its  multitude ;  treat  it  as  many,  without  forgetting  its 
oneness.  Let  it  be  full  of  the  spirit  of  authoritative 
truth,  and  at  the  same  time  of  personal  responsibility 
for  thought  and  action. 

If  we  look  at  the  Christian  congregation  in  another 
and  perhaps  a  simpler  way,  it  stands  as  perhaps  the 
best  representative  assembly  of  humanity  that  you 
can  find  in  the  world.  Men,  women,  and  children 
are  aU  there  together.  No  age,  no  sex  must  monopo- 
lize its  privileges.  All  ministrations  to  it  must  be 
full  at  once  of  ^dgor  and  of  tenderness,  the  father's 
and  the  mother's  touch  at  once.  Riches  and  poverty 
meet  indifferently  in  the  idea,  however  it  may  be  in 
the  reahty,  of  the  congregation.     Even  learning  and 


208         LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

ignorance  are  recognized  as  properly  meeting  there. 
However  difficult  it  may  be  to  do  it,  it  is  clearly  rec- 
ognized that  men  ought  to  preach  so  that  the  wisest 
and  the  simplest  alike  can  understand  and  get  the 
blessing.  Here,  then,  is  pure  humanity.  What  other 
assembly  so  brings  us  together  on  the  simple  warrant 
of  our  race  ?  This  is  what  I  always  tliink  is  meant  by 
that  record  of  the  ministry  of  Jesus,  "  The  common 
people  heard  Him  gladly."  It  was  not  the  poor  be- 
cause of  some  privilege  that  belonged  to  their  pov- 
erty. It  was  those,  rich  or  poor,  wise  or  rude,  in 
whom  the  fundamental  elements  of  human  life  were 
unclouded  by  artificial  culture.  Pharisee  or  publi- 
can, fisherman  or  philosopher,  if  they  had  not  for- 
gotten to  be  men,  they  were  still  "  common  people," 
and  heard  the  human  Saviour  gladly.  It  was  to  their 
humanity  He  preached,  and  nothing  that  He  knew 
of  God  was  too  precious  to  be  brought,  if  He  could 
bring  it,  to  their  understanding.  Preach  to  this  same 
humanity,  and  you  too  will  give  it  your  best.  Trust 
the  people  to  whom  you  preach  more  than  most  min- 
isters do.  Begin  your  ministry  by  being  sure  that  if 
you  give  your  people  your  best  thought,  it  will  be 
none  too  good  for  them.  They  will  take  it  all.  Only 
be  sure  that  it  is  real,  and  that  you  are  giving  it  to 
them  for  their  best  good,  and  that  it  is  what,  if  they 
did  rf^ceive  it,  would  do  them  good,  and  then  give 
them   the  very  best  and  truest  that  j^ou  know.     For 


THE   CONGREGATION.  209 

one  minister  who  preaches  '^over  people's  heads" 
there  are  twenty  whose  preaching  goes  wandering 
about  under  men's  feet,  or  is  flung  off  into  the  air,  in 
the  right  intellectual  plane  perhaps,  but  in  a  wholly 
wrong  direction. 

Not  that  there  must  not  be  discrimination ;  only  it 
must  not  be  in  the  quality  of  your  thought.  Never 
your  best  thought  for  the  old,  your  cheap  thought  for 
the  children  5  never  your  best  thought  for  the  rich 
and  poor  thought  for  the  poor.  The  best  that  you 
can  give  is  not  too  good  for  any  one  ;  but  in  that  giv- 
ing of  the  best  there  is  need  for  the  most  true  and 
delicate  discrimination  as  to  how  it  shall  be  given, 
and  which  part  of  it  shall  be  given  to  this  congrega- 
tion and  which  to  that.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  rule. 
It  belongs  to  wise  and  sympathetic  instinct.  To  cul- 
tivate that  instinct,  to  learn  to  feel  a  congregation,  to 
let  it  claim  its  owm  from  him,  is  one  of  the  first  duties 
of  a  minister.  Until  you  do  that  you  may  be  a  gi*eat 
expounder,  a  brilliant  "  sermonizer,"  but  you  cannot 
be  a  preacher.  Never  to  be  tempted  to  profoundness 
where  it  would  be  thrown  away ;  never  to  be  childlike 
when  it  is  manly  vigor  that  you  need ;  never  to  be 
dull  when  you  mean  to  be  solemn,  nor  frivolous  when 
you  mean  only  to  be  bright ;  this  comes  from  a  very 
quick  power  of  perception  and  adaptation.  Our 
work  has  always  had  some  curious  connections  with 
the  art  of  fishing.     Let  me  quote  you  from  Isaak 


210  LECTURES   ON  PEE  ACHING. 

Walton  what  Piscator  says  to  Venator  while  they  sit 
by  the  stream-side  at  breakfast,  on  the  morning  of 
the  first  lesson  in  trout-fishing.  I  was  struck  by  its 
appropriateness  to  the  subject  of  discrimination  in 
preaching.  It  may  help  you,  if  you  remember  it, 
when  you  come  to  '^fish  for  trout  with  a  worm" 
yourseK,  and  may  make  no  unfit  rule  for  real  timeli- 
ness in  the  pulpit.  ^^  Take  this  for  a  rule/'  he  says : 
^'  when  5^ou  fish  for  trout  with  a  worm,  let  your  line 
have  so  much  and  not  more  lead  than  will  fit  the 
stream  in  which  you  fish ;  that  is  to  say,  more  in  a 
great  troublesome  stream  than  in  a  smaller  that  is 
quieter ;  as  near  as  may  be  so  much  as  will  sink  the 
bait  to  the  bottom  and  keep  it  still  in  motion  and  not 
more."  Weight  and  movement, — these  are  what  we 
need  in  fishing  and  in  preaching. 

The  congregation  being  what  it  is,  let  me  ask,  in 
the  few  moments  that  remain  to-day,  what  it  can  do 
for  the  preacher,  both  in  the  way  of  help  and  in  the 
way  of  danger. 

In  the  way  of  help,  it  brings  him  the  inspiration  of 
its  numbers,  the  boldness  and  freedom  of  its  miti- 
gated personality,  and  the  larger  test  of  his  work.  It 
is  not  safe  to  judge  of  the  effect  of  your  work  by  any 
one  individual  5  but  when  a  congregation  pronounces 
on  it,  not  by  the  unreliable  witness  of  praise,  but  by 
the  testimony  of  its  evidently  changed  condition,  its 


THE  CONGREGATION.  211 

higher  life,  its  more  complete  devotion,  it  is  never 
wrong.  Do  not  despise  the  witness  that  even  the 
meanest  of  your  people  bear  to  your  faithfulness  or 
unfaithfulness.  When  it  really  rains,  the  puddles  as 
well  as  the  ocean  bear  witness  of  the  shower.  Trust 
your  people's  judgment  on  your  work :  what  they  say 
about  it,  a  good  dealj  but  what  it  does  upon  them, 
much  more. 

And  I  cannot  help  bearing  witness  to,  the  fairness 
and  considerateness  which  belong  to  this  strange 
composite  being,  the  congregation.  His  insight  is 
very  true,  and  his  conscience  on  the  whole  is  very 
right.  If  he  sees  that  his  minister  is  totally  devoted 
to  him,  and  giving  his  life  up  to  his  work,  he  stands 
by  that  minister  of  his  and  provides  for  him  abun- 
dantly. If  he  sees  that  his  minister  is  taking  good 
care  of  his  own  interests,  he  lets  him  do  it,  as  he 
would  let  any  other  man,  and  does  not  trouble  him- 
self about  it,  as  there  is  no  reason  that  he  should. 
AVliether  the  minister  feels  the  congregation  or  not, 
the  congregation  feels  the  minister.  Often  the  horse 
knows  the  rider  better  than  the  rider  knows  the 
horse.  There  may  be  exceptions  which  would  not 
justify  my  confidence.  In  all  these  lectures  I  am 
only  giving  you  the  impressions  which  have  come  out 
of  my  own  experience.  I  am  sure  it  will  be  well  if 
you  can  never  allow  yourself  to  complain  that  your 
congregation  neglect  you  without  first  asking  your- 


212  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

self  whether  you  have  given  them  any  reason  why 
they  should  attend  to  you. 

Indeed,  the  danger  of  the  congregation  to  the  min- 
ister comes  more  from  their  indulgence  than  from 
their  opposition.  The  feeling  of  the  strongest  minis- 
ters about  the  superficialness  of  clerical  popularity  is 
very  striking.  Nothing  seemed  to  vex  Robertson  so 
much  as  to  be  talked  of  as  the  idol  of  the  crowd. 
Indeed,  he  is  absolutely  morbid  about  it,  and  hates 
that  to  which  he  need  only  have  been  indifferent.  It 
would  seem  as  if  mere  popularit}^,  to  a  man  of  any 
independence,  was  the  driest  of  all  Dead  Sea  fruits. 
And  there  is  reason  why  it  should  be  so.  It  is  the 
worst  and  feeblest  part  of  your  congregation  that 
makes  itself  heard  in  vociferous  applause,  and  it 
applauds  that  in  you  which  pleases  it.  Robertson, 
in  one  of  his  letters,  says  of  a  friend :  "  He  has  lost 
his  power,  which  was  once  the  greatest  that  I  ever 
knew.  The  sentimental  people  of  his  congregation 
attribute  it  to  an  increase  of  spirituality,  but  it  is, 
in  truth,  a  falling-off  of  energy  of  grasp."  These 
words  suggest  the  cause  of  many  a  minister's  deca}^, 
the  Capua  where  many  a  preaching  Hannibal  has 
been  ruined.  "  Turba  est  argumentum  pessimi," 
says  Seneca.  There  are  certain  other  causes  which 
help  to  produce  the  impression,  but  still  there  is 
truth  in  the  belief  that  much  of  the  best  thinking 
and  preaching  of  the  land  is  done  in  obscure  parishes 


THE   CONGREGATION.  213 

and  by  unfamous  preachers.  The  true  balance,  if  we 
could  only  reach  and  keep  it,  evidently  is  in  neither 
courting  nor  despising  the  popular  applause,  to  feel 
it  as  every  healthy  man  feels  the  approval  of  his  fel- 
low-men, and  yet  never  to  be  beguiled  by  it  from 
that  which  is  the  only  true  object  of  our  work,  God's 
truth  and  men's  salvation.  And  remember  this,  that 
the  only  way  to  be  saved  from  the  poison  of  men's 
flattery  is  to  be  genuinely  devoted,  to  those  same  men's 
good.  If  you  really  want  to  drag  a  man  out  of  the 
fire,  you  will  not  be  distracted  into  self-conceit  by  his 
praises  of  the  grace  and  softness  of  the  hand  that  you 
reach  out  to  him.  You  will  say,  "  Stop  your  compli- 
ments and  take  hold." 

The  subject  of  the  popularity  of  ministers  is  indeed 
a  curious  one,  and  may  well  merit  a  few  moments' 
study.  We  hardty  realize,  I  believe,  how  far  the  de- 
sire for  popularity  in  this  time  and  land  has  taken 
the  place  of  the  ambition  for  preferment  which  we 
read  of  in  English  clerical  history,  and  which  has  so 
strongly  and  so  justly  excited  our  dislike.  He  who 
used  there  to  seek  the  favor  of  a  bishop,  or  some 
other  patron,  bids  here  for  the  liking  of  the  multi- 
tude. It  is  a  question  hardly  worth  the  asking, 
which  ambition  calls  out  the  lower  arts  or  does  the 
greater  mischief.  Both  are  very  bad.  To  set  one's 
heart  on  being  popular  is  fatal  to  the  preacher's  best 
growth.     To  escape  from  that  desire  one  needs  to 


214  LECTURES  ON  PEE  ACHING. 

kiiow  that  the  men  who  are  in  no  sense  popular  fa- 
vorites do  much  of  the  very  best  work  of  the  minis- 
try. In  all  work  there  seems  to  be  generally  two 
classes  of  workers,  one  whose  processes  of  working 
are  apparent,  the  other  whose  results  only  appear. 
Now  most  popular  preachers  seem  to  me  to  belong  to 
the  first  class,  and  to  owe  their  popularity  to  that 
characteristic.  Not  only  what  they  do,  but  the  way 
in  which  they  do  it,  interests  people.  It  is  not  only 
the  power  of  the  truth  which  they  declare :  it  is  the 
eloquence  of  the  sermons  in  which  they  declare  it.  It 
is  not  only  the  gracious  influence  they  exercise :  it 
is  their  gracious  way  of  exercising  it,  the  smile,  the 
tone,  the  transparent  vision  of  the  kindly  heart.  Let 
a  man  understand  this,  and  it  will  certainly  requii-e 
no  very  profound  philosophy  or  devotion  for  him 
to  let  the  popularity  go  if  he  can  do  the  work.  The 
popularity  is  an  accident :  the  power  is  essential. 

And,  no  doubt,  the  absence  of  lively  popular  favor 
has  an  influence  in  enabling  a  minister  to  apprehend 
the  larger  indications  of  the  successful  working  of  his 
truth.  The  people's  applause  emphasizes  the  smaU 
success,  and  tempts  a  man  to  be  content  with  that. 
He  who  works  in  silence  becomes  aware  of  the  larger 
movements  of  the  truth  and  the  surer  conquests  of 
the  power  of  God.  The  small  signs  fail ;  there  is  no 
glitter  in  the  arms,  no  shout  of  triumph  anywhere, 


THE  CONGREGATION.  215 

but  often  the  very  silence  lets  one  hear  more  clearly 
the  great  progress  that  is  going  on  all  over  the  field- 
Again,  there  is  great  difference  in  men  according  as 
they  seem  to  possess  or  to  lack  themselves  the  quali- 
ties and.  conditions  which  they  try  to  create  in  other 
people.  Some  men  are  all  afire  themselves,  and  seem 
to  fire  others  by  contagion ;  other  men  appear  cold, 
but  send  forth  fire  from  their  very  coldness.  Some 
men  are  full  of  movement,  and  so  make  others  move ; 
other  men  seem  sluggish,  and  yet  awaken  others  to  a 
vitality  which  they  do  not  seem  to  possess  themselves. 

"  The  enormous  axle-tree 
That  whirls  (how  slow  itself !)  ten  thousand  spindles." 

In  general,  the  popularity,  the  quick  general  sym- 
pathy and  admiration,  will  go  with  the  first  class  of 
men.  The  others  will  do  their  work  in  quietness, 
with  much  power  but  not  much  observation. 

To  be  your  own  best  self  for  your  people's  sake — 
that  is  the  true  law  of  the  minister's  devotion.  "  Lo- 
quendum  ut  multi,  sapiendum  ut  pauci " — the  thought 
of  the  few  in  the  speech  of  the  many — that  describes 
a  popular  power  which  any  preacher  has  not  only  the 
right  but  the  duty  to  covet. 

The  whole  of  the  relation,  then,  between  the 
preacher  and  the  congregation  is  plain.  They  be- 
long together.     But  neither  can  absorb  or  override 


216        LECTUBES   ON  PREACHING. 

tlie  other.  The}'^  must  be  filled  with  mutual  respect. 
He  is  their  leader,  but  his  leadership  is  not  one  con- 
stant strain,  and  never  is  forgetful  of  the  higher  guid- 
ance upon  which  they  both  rely.  It  is  hke  the  rope  by 
which  one  ship  draws  another  out  into  the  sea.  The 
rope  is  not  always  tight  between  them,  and  all  the 
while  the  tide  on  which  they  float  is  carrying  them 
both.  So  it  is  not  mere  leading  and  following.  It  is 
one  of  the  very  highest  pictures  of  human  compan- 
ionship that  can  be  seen  on  earth.  Its  constant  pres- 
ence has  given  Christianity  much  of  its  noblest  and 
sweetest  color  in  aU  ages.  It  has  much  of  the  inti- 
macy of  the  family  with  something  of  the  breadth  and 
dignity  that  belongs  to  the  state.  It  is  too  sacred 
to  be  thought  of  as  a  contract.  It  is  a  union  which 
God  joins  together  for  purposes  worthy  of  His  care. 
When  it  is  worthily  realized,  who  can  say  that  it  may 
not  stretch  beyond  the  line  of  death,  and  they  who 
have  been  minister  and  people  to  each  other  here  be 
something  holy  and  peculiar  to  each  other  in  the  City 
of  Crod  forever  ? 


THE   MINISTRY  FOR  OUR  AGE. 


X  AM  to  speak  to  you  to-day  upon  the  preacher  in 
^  his  special  relation  to  our  own  time.  There  is  a 
strange  sound,  perhaps,  when  we  think  about  it,  in 
the  very  suggestion  that  the  preacher  of  the  Gospel  is 
to  be  something  special  with  reference  to  the  special 
time  in  which  he  lives.  For  we  have  dwelt  upon  the 
one  universal  and  eternal  message  which  the  preacher 
is  sent  to  carry  to  the  world.  That  message  never  v^ 
changes.  The  identity  of  Christianity  lies  in  its 
identity.  Nay,  the  identity  of  man  is  bound  up  with 
it ;  and  so  long  as  man  is  what  he  is,  what  God  has 
to  say  to  him  by  His  servants  will  certainly  always 
be  the  same.  And  so  the  preacher,  as  the  bearer  of 
that  message,  must  have  his  true  identity,  must  stand 
before  men  in  essentially  the  same  figure  and  speak 
with  essentially  the  same  voice  in  aU  the  ages. 
Where,  then,  does  the  adaptatioii  of  a  preacher  to 
his  own  age  come  in?  The  best  answer,  perhaps, 
would  be,  by  way  of  illustration,  in  the  position  which 
every  live  and  cultivated  man  holds  with  reference  to 

217 


218        LECTURES   ON  PEEACHING, 

the  time  he  lives  in.  He  is,  in  the  first  place,  a  man 
in  universal  human  history.  His  are  the  rights,  the 
duties,  and  the  standards  which  belong  to  all  men 
simply  as  men.  In  proportion  as  he  is  a  strong,  wise 
man  this  larger  life  is  real  to  him.  He  knows  that 
he  will  live  his  special  hfe  more  healthily  for  himself 
and  more  helpfully  to  his  brethren,  not  by  forget- 
ting, but  by  remembering  his  place  in  the  general  and 
continuous  humanity.  It  will  keep  his  sight  truer. 
Many  times  it  will  preserve  his  independence  when 
it  is  in  danger  from  the  fleeting  passions  of  the  hour. 
But  yet  he  lives  the  special  life.  He  is  a  man  of 
his  own  day,  thoroughly  interested  in  the  questions 
that  are  exciting  men  around  him,  pained  by  the 
troubles,  delighted  by  the  joys,  and  busy  in  the  tasks 
of  his  own  time.  His  broad  humanity  and  broad  cult- 
ure make  him  a  man  of  aU  days  5  his  keen  hfe  and 
quick  sympathies  and  healthy  instincts  and  real  de- 
sire for  work  make  him  a  man  of  his  own  day.  We 
can  all  see  the  ideal  completeness  of  such  a  life. 
"Whenever  we  have  seen  a  man  at  all  attaining  it  we 
have  felt  how  complete  he  was.  The  incompleteness 
of  men  comes  as  they  fall  short  of  this  on  one  side  or 
the  other.  The  man  who  belongs  to  the  world  but 
not  to  his  time  grows  abstract  and  vague,  and  lays 
no  strong  grasp  upon  men's  lives  and  the  present 
causes  of  their  actions.  The  man  who  belongs  to  his 
time  but  not  to  the  world  grows  thin  and  superficial. 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR   OUR  AGE.  219 

And  just  exactly  this  is  true  about  tlie  preacher. 
There  are  the  constant  and  unchanging  needs  of 
men,  and  the  message  which  is  addressed  to  those 
needs  and  shares  their  unchangeableness ;  and  then 
there  are  the  ever-varying  aspects  of  those  needs  to 
which  the  tone  of  the  message,  if  it  would  really  reach 
the  needy  soul,  must  intelligently  and  sympathetic- 
ally correspond.  The  first  of  these  comes  of  the 
preacher's  larger  life,  his  study  of  the  timeless  Word 
of  God,  his  intercourse  with  God  in  history,  his  per- 
sonal communion  with  his  Master,  and  the  knowledge 
of  those  depths  of  human  nature  which  never  change 
whatever  waves  of  alteration  may  distui'b  the  surface. 
The  second  comes  from  a  constantly  alert  watch  of 
the  events  and  symptoms  of  the  current  times,  begot- 
ten of  a  deep  desire  that  the  salvation  of  the  world, 
which  is  always  going  on,  may  show  itself  here  and 
now  in  the  salvation  of  these  particular  men  to  whom 
the  preacher  speaks.  If  we  leave  out  the  difference 
of  natural  endowments  and  of  personal  devotedness, 
there  is  nothing  which  so  decides  the  different  kinds 
as  well  as  the  different  degrees  of  ministers'  successes 
as  the  presence  or  absence  of  this  balance  and  pro- 
portion of  the  general  and  special,  the  world-con- 
sciousness and  the  time-consciousness.  The  abstract 
reasoner,  laying  his  deep  trains  of  thought  which  run 
far  wide  of  the  citadels  where  sin  is  now  entrenched, 
and  never  shatter  a  stone  of  present  wickedness  with 


220  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

their  ponderous  explosions^  whatever  other  good 
things  he  may  do,  fails  as  a  preacher  to  men.  The 
mere  critic  of  the  time  who,  with  no  deep  principles 
and  no  long  hopes,  goes  on  his  way  merrily  or  fiercely 
lopping  off  the  ugly  heads  of  the  vices  of  the  time 
with  his  light  switch  or  vahant  sword,  he,  too,  fails  in 
his  work,  and  by  and  by  is  wearied  and  distressed  as 
he  finds  the  surface  character  of  all  the  reformation 
to  which  he  brings  his  converts.  It  is  the  first  sort 
of  preaching  that  wearies  men  when  they  complain 
of  what  they  call  a  very  profound  but  a  very  dull 
sermon.  The  second  is  what  makes  people  dissatis- 
fied with  a  sense  of  unthoroughness  as  they  come 
home  stiU  mildly  tingling  from  what  they  call  a  sen- 
sational sermon.  The  first  man  has  aimed  at  truth 
without  caring  for  timeliness.  The  second  man  has 
been  so  anxious  to  be  timely  that  he  has  perhaps  dis- 
torted truth,  and  certainly  robbed  her  of  her  com- 
pleteness. Truth  and  timeliness  together  make  the 
full  preacher.  How  shall  you  win  such  fulness  ?  Let 
me  say  one  or  two  general  words,  and  leave  particu- 
lars of  the  method  to  come  out,  if  they  may,  all 
through  the  lecture.  First,  seek  always  truth  first 
and  timeliness  second, — never  timeliness  first  and 
truth  second.  Then  let  your  search  for  truth  be  de- 
liberate, systematic,  conscientious.  Let  your  search 
for  timeliness  consist  rather  in  seeking  for  strong 
sympathy  with  your  kind,  a  real  share  in  their  occu- 


THE  MINISTRY  FOB   OUR  AGE.  221 

pations,  and  a  hearty  interest  in  what  is  going  on. 
And  yet  again ;  let  the  subjects  of  your  sermons  be 
mostly  eternal  truths,  and  let  the  timeliness  come  in 
the  illustration  of  those  truths  by,  and  their  applica- 
tion to,  the  events  of  current  life.  So  you  will  make 
the  thinking  of  your  hearers  larger,  and  not  smaller, 
as  you  preach  to  them. 

So  much  in  general.  But  now  let  us  come  to  this 
most  interesting  age  in  which  we  live  and  in  which 
we  are  set  to  preach.  I  want  to  point  out  two  or  three 
of  its  broadest  characteristics  and  see  how  they  affect 
the  preacher's  work.  I  do  not  undertake  any  such 
task  as  a  general  estimate  of  the  character  of  our 
strange  century  and  country.  I  only  want  to  indicate 
some  points  in  it  which  come  directly  home  to  you 
and  me,  and  to  see,  if  we  can,  how  we  shall  treat 
them.  Let  me  speak  of  the  feeling  of  our  time  about 
Truth  and  Li^  in  general,  about  the  Ministry  and 
about  the  Bible. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  there  are  certain  vaguely  X 
conceived  but  real  difficulties  lying  in  people's  minds 
to-day  against  which  the  Gospel  that  we  preach 
strikes.  We  meet  them  in  a  great  variety  of  forms. 
We  find  their  spirit  appearing  in  regions  of  intelli- 
gence where  there  cannot  be  any  understanding  of 
their  intellectual  statements.  The  most  common,  the  ^ 
most  wonderfully  subtle  and  pervasive  of  all  these  is 
the  notion  of  Fate,  with  aU  the  consequences  which  it 


222        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

brings  with  it  to  the  ideas  of  responsibility  and  even 
to  the  fundamental  conceptions  of  personal  Life. 
We  are  so  occupied  with  watching  the  developments 
of  fatalistic  philosophy  in  its  higher  and  more  scien- 
tific phases  that  I  think  we  often  fail  to  see  to  what 
an  extent  and  in  what  unexpected  forms  it  has  found 
its  way  into  the  common  life  of  men  and  is  governing 
their  thoughts  about  ordinary  things.  The  notion  of 
fixed  helplessness,  of  the  impossibility  of  any  strong 
power  of  a  man  over  his  own  life,  and,  along  with 
this,  the  mitigation  of  the  thought  of  responsibility 
which,  beginning  with  the  sublime  notion  of  a  man's 
being  answerable  to  God,  comes  down  to  think  of  him 
only  as  bound  to  do  his  duty  to  society,  then  de- 
scends to  consider  him  as  only  liable  for  the  harm 
which  he  does  to  himself,  and  so  finally  reaches  the 
absolute  abandonment  of  any  idea  of  judgment  or 
accountability  whatever,  —  all  this  is  very  much  more 
common  than  we  dream.  It  runs  down  through  all 
the  degrees  of  lessening  consciousness.  There  is 
nothing  stranger  than  to  watch  how  the  intelligent 
speculations  of  the  learned  become  the  vague  preju- 
dices of  the  vulgar.  You  can  shut  up  nothing  within 
the  scholar's  study-door.  For  good  or  for  mischief 
aU  that  the  wisest  are  thinking  becomes  in  some  form 
or  other  the  basis  upon  which  the  ignorant  live. 
Partly  this,  and  partly  a  power  which  works  just  the 
other  way.     Partly  that  the  learned  are  led  on  by 


THE  MINISTRY  FOB   OVB  AGE.  223 

their  oneness  with  all  their  brethren  to  take  for  the 
subjects  of  their  study  those  things  to  which  the  in- 
terest of  the  unlearned  has  been  turned,  and  to  reduce 
to  philosophical  expression  those  ideas  by  which  the 
rudest  are  shaping  their  lives.  Whatever  the  inter- 
action of  the  two  causes  may  have  been,  the  result  is 
here  in  a  certain  suspicion  of  fatalism  all  around  us. 
With  it  come  the  inevitable  consequences  of  hopeless- 
ness and  restraint  pervading  all  society  and  influenc- 
ing all  action,  different  in  different  natures,  hard  and 
defiant  in  some,  soft  and  luxurious  in  others,  but  in 
all  their  various  forms  unfitting  men  for  the  best  hap- 
piness, or  the  best  growth,  or  the  best  usefulness  to 
fellow-men.  Tliis  is  what  we  find  scattered  through 
the  society  in  which  we  live.  This  is  what  you  have 
got  to  preach  to,  my  young  friends.  You  will  not  es- 
cape it  by  ministering  to  one  class  of  people  rather 
than  to  another,  for  it  runs  everywhere.  You  will 
leave  it  in  the  study  only  to  find  it  in  some  new  form 
in  the  workshop.  You  will  silence  it  in  the  dull  quer- 
ulous discontent  of  the  boor  only  to  hear  it  in  the 
calm  and  resigned  and  lofty  philosophy  of  the  sage. 
Wliat  preaching  can  jou  meet  it  with  ?  Certainly  one 
may  point  out  the  broadest  features  of  the  preaching 
which  alone  can  meet  it.  It  must  be  positive  preach- 
ing. There  never  was  an  age  when  negative  preach- 
ing, the  mere  assertion  of  what  is  not  true,  showed  its 
uselessness  as  it  does  to-day.     It  does  no  good  to 


224  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

show  the  fatalist  that  fatalism  is  untenable.  He  does 
not  really  believe  it ;  it  is  only  that  he  seems  to  be 
unable  to  believe  anything  else.  You  disprove  it, 
and  that  only  adds  another  to  the  heap  of  things  that 
are  incredible.  You  must  preach  positively,  telling 
him  what  is  true,  setting  God  before  liis  heart  and 
bidding  it  know  its  Lord.  And  it  must  be  preaching 
to  the  conscience.  The  conscience  is  the  last  part  of 
our  personalit}^  that  dies  into  the  death  of  fatalism. 
It  must  be  the  first  part  of  us  that  wakens  to  the 
privileges  and  obligations  of  personal  life.  Make  a 
man  know  that  he  is  wicked  and  that  he  may  be 
good,  and  his  self  and  God's  self  will  be  realities  to 
him  which  no  juggle  of  words  can  make  him  believe 
do  not  exist.  And,  thirdly,  there  never  was  an  age 
that  so  needed  to  have  Christ  preached  to  it — the 
personal  Christ.  In  His  personality  the  bewildered 
soul  must  re-find  its  own  personal  life.  In  the  ser- 
vice of  Him  it  must  re-discover  the  possibility  and  the 
privilege  of  duty.  The  haunting  scepticism  must  be 
invaded  by  preaching  such  as  this.  The  doubt  which 
has  grown  up  so  vaguely  and  will  give  no  account  of 
itself  must  be  overshadowed  and  undermined,  over- 
shadowed by  the  vivid  majesty  of  God  in  Christ,  un- 
dermined by  the  sense  of  sin  and  the  necessity  of 
righteousness.  The  only  hope  of  its  complete  disper- 
sion is  to  produce  the  Christian  life  which  is  its  own 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR   OUR   AGE.  225 

assurance,  declares  its  own  freedom,  and  prophesies  its 
own  possibilities. 

I  speak  of  this  tendency  to  doubt  concerning  spirit- 
ual and  personal  forces  principally  as  it  appears  all 
through  the  movements  of  society  and  the  lives  of 
common  men.  I  have  not  much  to  say  here  about 
the  way  in  which  the  preacher  meets  it  in  the  theories 
of  science,  the  guesses  at  the  philosophy  of  the  uni- 
verse which  the  philosophers  of  our  time  have  made 
so  plentifully.  But  nobody  can  listen  to  sermons 
nowadays  and  not  be  struck  by  seeing  how  confus- 
edly the  purpose  of  preaching  and  the  function  of 
the  preacher  seem  to  be  apprehended  by  those  who 
preach.  Among  the  preachers  who  busy  themselves 
with  what  modern  science  is  doing  and  saying,  we 
can  easily  discern  several  classes.  One  class  claims 
competently  to  criticise  the  work  of  specialists  and  to 
revise  their  judgments,  even  about  those  subjects  on 
which  they  ought  to  be  authorities.  It  attempts  to 
pronounce  with  competence  upon  the  results  of  scien- 
tific inquiry  in  a  summary  way  which  it  would  never 
tolerate  with  reference  to  its  own  peculiar  subjects  of 
study.  It  is  needless  to  say  how  this  class  puts  itself 
into  the  power  of  those  whom  it  criticises.  It  can 
get  the  material  for  its  criticism  only  from  them.  So 
soon  as  it  leaves  the  field  of  general  reasoning  and 
attempts  to  touch  the  question  of  scientific  fact,  it 


226        LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

must  look  for  its  facts  to  those  who,  for  the  time,  it 
is  treating  as  its  adversaries.  It  is  reduced  to  some- 
thing of  the  helplessness  to  which  the  Israelites  were 
brought  when  the  Philistines  who  had  conquered 
them  compelled  them  to  come  to  their  smiths  to 
sharpen  every  man  his  share,  and  his  coulter,  and 
his  axe,  and  his  mattock.  Another  class  seems  to 
stand  ready,  not  merely  to  disown  the  power  of 
competent  criticism,  but  to  accept  with  headlong  zeal 
every  momentary  conclusion  of  modern  science,  even 
before  the  scientific  world  itself  has  learned  to  treat 
it  as  more  than  a  probable  hypothesis;  and  seems 
to  be  all  the  more  eager  to  accept  it  the  more  en- 
tirely it  seems  to  be  in  conflict  with  the  faith  of 
Christianity.  No  one  wiU  deny,  I  think,  that  there 
are  among  the  disciples  of  natural  science  to-day 
some  men  who  curiously  repeat  on  their  own  ground 
every  offensive  and  arrogant  peculiarity  of  the  priest- 
craft whose  historical  enormities  they  so  fondly  and 
truly  upbraid.  It  is  an  interesting  illustration  of 
how  human  nature  is  the  same  at  heart,  and,  if  it  be 
bad,  will  show  the  same  kind  of  badness  whether  it 
wear  the  priest's  surplice  or  the  professoi*'s  gown. 
To  this  overbearing  assumption  this  second  class  is 
always  in  great  haste  to  prostrate  itself.  Surely  the 
spirit  of  both  of  these  classes  is  not  good.  Either  is 
bad,  either  the  competence  with  which  some  clergy- 
men attempt  to  pronounce  upon  the  value  of  scientific 


THE  MINISTRY  FOB   OUR  AGE.  227 

theories,  or  the  panic  in  which  other  clergymen  seem 
to  be  waiting  only  to  surrender  to  the  first  man  with 
a  hammer  or  a  microscope  who  challenges  them. 
There  is  another  class  still  which  seems  to  be  merely 
frightened.  A  sense  of  vague  inevitable  danger  is 
continually  haunting  those  who  feel  how  wholly  in- 
competent they  are  to  master  or  even  to  compre- 
hend the  thing  they  fear.  They  hate  and  dread  the 
very  name  of  Science.  They  would  really,  literally, 
silence  its  investigations  if  they  could.  As  the  best 
thing  which  they  can  do,  they  are  very  apt  to  devise 
or  to  adopt  some  exceedingly  fantastic  and  exagger- 
ated form  either  of  church  government,  or  of  ritual, 
or  of  doctrine,  which  they  clothe  with  artificial 
sacredness,  and  then  set  it  up  to  keep  the  advanc- 
ing monster  back,  as  they  said  that  the  Chinese  piled 
their  most  sacred  crockery  upon  the  track  to  stop  the 
progress  of  the  first  locomotive  that  came  thundering 
through  their  land.  All  fanaticism  is  closely  bound 
to  fear. 

These  are  the  dispositions  with  which  some  minis- 
ters meet  the  spirit  of  the  day.  These  are  the  va- 
rious classes.  Among  these  classes  comes  some  new 
minister,  and  stands  and  says.  To  which  shall  I  be- 
long? Is  there  not  something  better  than  either? 
Indeed  there  is.  It  is  possible  for  you  and  me,  tak- 
ing the  facts  of  the  spiritual  life,  to  declare  them  with 
as  true  a  certainty  as  any  preacher  ever  did  in  what 


228  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

men  call  the  "  ages  of  faith."  They  are  as  true  to-day 
as  they  ever  were.  Men  are  as  ready  to  feel  their 
truth.  Th^  spiritual  nature  of  man,  with  all  its 
needs,  is  just  as  real  a  thing,  and  Christ  is  just  as 
truly  and  richly  its  satisfaction.  To  speak  to  it  and 
offer  Him  is  your  privilege  and  mine.  And  yet  not 
to  be  unregardful  of  what  men  are  thinking  by  our 
side,  to  watch  it,  so  far  as  we  may  to  understand  it 
all,  but  always  to  watch  it  with  a  desire  to  see,  not 
what  it  will  say  to  overthrow,  but  what  it  will  say  to 
strengthen  and  enlarge  the  truth  we  preach  5  to  watch 
it  with  a  feeling  that  it  may  modify  our  conception 
and  statement  of  the  truth,  but  with  no  fear  at  all  that 
it  ever  can  destroy  the  truth  itseK ;  this  does  seem  to 
me  to  be  the  temper  for  the  preacher  of  to-day.  Our 
truth  stands  on  its  own  evidence,  but  it  has  its  con- 
nections with  all  the  truth  that  men  are  learning  so 
wonderfully  on  every  side.  To  listen  to  what  they 
learn,  not  that  we  may  see  whether  our  truth  of  the 
soul  and  of  God  is  true,  but  that  we  may  come  to 
truer  and  larger  ways  of  apprehending  it — this  is  our 
place.  If  we  can  take  this  place,  it  will  give  us  both 
fii'mness  and  freedom ;  it  will  free  us  alike  from  the 
uselessness  of  doubt  and  the  uselessness  of  bigotry. 

I  seem  to  see  strange  panic  in  the  faces  of  the  min- 
isters of  to-day.  I  have  seen  a  multitude  of  preach- 
ers gathered  together  to  listen  to  one  who  expounded 
scientific  theories  upon  the  religious  side,  and  making 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR   OUR  AGE.  229 

the  hall  ring  with  vociferous  applause  of  statements 
which  might  be  true  or  not,  but  certainly  whose  truth 
they  had  not  examined,  and  in  which  it  certainly  was 
not  the  truth  but  the  tendency  to  help  their  side  of 
the  argument  that  they  applauded.  I  think  that  that 
is  not  a  pleasant  sight  for  any  one  to  see  who  really 
cares  for  the  dignity  and  pui'ity  of  his  profession. 

The  preacher  must  mainly  rely  upon  the  strength 
of  what  he  does  beheve,  and  not  upon  the  weakness 
of  what  he  does  not  believe.  It  must  be  the  power 
of  spirituality  and  not  the  feebleness  of  materialism 
that  makes  him  strong.  No  man  conquers,  no  true 
man  tries  to  conquer  merely  by  the  powerlessness  of 
his  adversary.  I  think  the  scene  which  I  just  de- 
scribed was  principally  melancholy  because  it  sug- 
gested a  lack  of  faith  among  the  ministers  themselves. 
And  one  feared  that  that  was  connected  with  the  ob- 
stinate hold  upon  some  untenable  excrescences  upon 
their  faith  which  they  chose  to  consider  part  of  the 
substance  of  their  faith  itself.  So  bigotry  and  cow- 
ardice go  together  always. 

But  after  all,  in  days  like  these,  one  often  finds 
himself  falling  back  upon  the  simplest  truths  con- 
cerning the  whole  matter  of  belief.  If  there  be  dis- 
proof or  modification  of  what  we  Christians  hold,  the 
sooner  it  can  be  made  known  to  us  the  better.  We 
are  Christians  at  all,  if  we  are  Christians  worthily,  be- 
cause we  are  first  lovers  of  the  truth.     And  if  our 


230        LECTUEES   ON  PREACHING. 

truth  is  wholly  true,  it  is  God's  before  it  is  ours,  and 
we  may  at  least  trust  Him  with  some  part  of  its  care. 
We  are  so  apt  to  leave  Him  out. 

And  there  is  one  strong  feeling  that  comes  out  of 
the  extravagant  unbelief  of  our  time  which  has  in  it 
an  element  of  reassurance.  The  preacher  and  pastor 
sees  that  in  human  nature  which  assures  him  of 
the  essential  religiousness  of  man.  He  comes  to  a 
complete  conviction  that  only  a  religion  can  over- 
throw and  supplant  a  religion.  Man  wholly  unrelig- 
ious  is  not  even  conceivable  to  him.  And  so,  however 
he  may  fear  for  single  souls,  the  very  absoluteness  of 
much  of  the  denial  of  the  time  seems  to  offer  security 
for  the  permanence  of  faith. 

But  the  main  thing  is  to  know  our  own  ground  as 
spiritual  men,  and  stand  on  its  assured  and  tested 
strength.  And  that  strength  can  be  tested  only  by 
our  own  experience  5  and  so  once  more  we  come  round 
to  our  old  first  truth,  that  the  man  is  behind  the  min- 
istry, that  what  is  in  the  sermon  must  be  in  the 
preacher  first. 

Here  must  come  what  useful  work  we  can  do  for 
those  who  are  bewildered  and  faithless  in  these  trying 
times.  If  you  are  going  to  help  men  who  are  mate- 
rialists, it  will  not  probably  be  by  a  scientific  disproof 
of  materialism.  It  will  be  by  a  strong  live  offer  of 
spiritual  realities.  It  is  not  what  the  minister  knows 
of  science,  but  how  he  gi'asps  and  presents  his  spirit- 


THE   MINISTRY  FOB   OUB  AGE.  231 

ual  verities,  that  makes  him  strong.  Many  ignorant 
n  inisters  meet  the  difficulties  of  men  far  wiser  than 
themselves.  I  may  know  nothing  of  speculative 
atheism.     It  is  how  I  know  God  that  tells. 

I  do  not  disparage  controversy.  Theology  must  be 
prepared  to  maintain  her  ground  against  all  comers. 
If  she  loses  her  power  of  attack  and  defense,  she  wiU 
lose  her  hfe,  as  they  used  to  say  that  when  the  bee 
parted  with  his  sting  he  parted  with  his  industry  and 
spirit.  Only  not  every  minister  is  made  for  a  contro- 
versialist, and  the  pulpit  is  not  made  for  controversy. 
The  pulpit  must  be  positive,  telling  its  message, 
trusting  to  the  power  of  that  message,  expecting  to 
see  it  blend  into  ha,rmony  with  aU  the  other  truth 
that  fills  the  world ;  and  the  preacher,  whatever  else 
he  may  be  elsewhere,  in  the  pulpit  must  be  positive 
too,  uttering  truth  far  more  than  denying  error. 
There  is  nothing  that  could  do  more  harm  to  Chris- 
tianity to-day  than  for  the  multitude  of  preachers 
to  turn  from  preaching  Christ,  whom  they  do  under- 
stand, to  the  discussion  of  scientific  questions  which 
they  do  not  understand.  Hear  the  conclusion  of  the 
whole  matter.  Preach  positively  what  you  believe. 
Never  preach  what  you  do  not  believe,  or  deny  what 
you  do  believe.  Rejoice  in  the  privilege  of  declaring 
God.  Let  your  people  frankly  understand,  while  you 
preach,  that  there  is  much  you  do  not  know,  and  that 
both  you  and  they  are  waiting  for  completer  light. 


232  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

I  must  not  linger  longer  on  this  topic.  May  God 
help  you,  as  you  meet  it  constantly,  to  be  wise  and  true. 

Another  of  the  questions  which  belong  to  this  time 
of  ours  in  some  peculiar  ways  is  the  question  of  tol- 
eration,—  the  relation  of  truth  to  partial  truth  and 
error.  This  again,  like  every  deep  pervading  question, 
has  its  form  for  the  learned  and  for  the  unlearned. 
To  the  scholar  it  comes  with  the  speculations,  for 
which  the  enlarged  acquaintance  with  other  lands 
and  times  has  furnished  such  abundant  food,  about 
comparative  religion.  To  the  unscholarly  it  offers 
itself  in  the  prevailing  disposition  to  exalt  conduct 
above  belief,  and  ask  not  what  views  a  man  holds, 
but  what  sort  of  life  he  lives.  In  both  these  cases 
the  tendency  of  oui-  time  is  no  doubt  towards  toler- 
ance. The  scholar  and  the  ignorant  man  alike  are 
both  content  that  their  neighbors  should  think  dift'er- 
ently  from  them  about  religion.  The  very  desire  for 
the  stake  has  died  away.  We  look  back  to  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  century  and  wonder  at  the 
enormities  of  bigotry.  We  are  all  thankful  for  the 
progress ;  but  often  as  we  read  the  books  of  the  time, 
often  as  we  talk  with  our  friends,  there  is  a  misgiving 
which  intrudes.  How  much  of  this  toleration  is  indif- 
ference ?  How  many  of  these  people  that  are  kindly 
to  their  neighbors'  faiths  are  careless  about  their 
own?  How  much  of  the  difference  between  us  and 
the  zealots  of  the  seventeenth  century  has  come  from 


TEE  MINISTRY  FOR   OUR  AGE.  233 

our  weakened  hold  on  truth  ?  They  believed  with  all 
their  hearts,  and  were  intolerant ;  we  have  grown  tol- 
erant, but  then  we  do  not  believe  as  they  believed. 
We  must  realize  their  intensity  before  we  presume  to 
sit  in  judgment  on  their  intolerance.  So  often  we 
are  only  trying  to  be  mutually  harmless.  We  are  hke 
steamers  lying  in  the  fog  and  whistling,  that  we  may 
not  run  into  others  nor  they  into  us.  It  is  safe,  but 
commerce  makes  no  great  progress  thereby,  and  it 
shows  no  great  skill  in  navigation.  And  then  there 
comes  the  picture  of  a  higher  state  than  either  the 
seventeenth  or  nineteenth  century  has  reached.  We 
see  that  here,  as  everywhere,  mankind  has  been  ad- 
vancing in  a  halting  and  awkward  way,  first  dragging 
one  side  forward,  and  only  gradually  di-agging  the 
other  side  along  to  meet  it.  There  was  a  time  when 
men  were  standing  with  their  love  of  truth  in  advance 
of  their  love  of  personal  Hberty.  We  see  that  we  are 
standing  now  with  our  love  of  personal  liberty  in  ad- 
vance of  our  love  for  truth.  We  anticipate  a  time 
when  the  love  of  truth  shall  come  up  to  our  love  of 
liberty,  and  men  shall  be  cordially  tolerant  and  ear- 
nest behevers  both  at  once.  When  that  comes  it  will 
be  a  new  thing  in  the  world.  It  has  been  seen  in 
beautiful  or  splendid  individuals  scattered  all  through 
the  ages,  but  there  has  been  no  age  in  which  the  mass 
of  thinkers  were  at  once  strong  in  positive  beUef  and 
tolerant  of  difference  of  opinion. 


234        LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

Now  it  is  certainty  the  minister's  duty  to  inculcate 
positive  belief.  We  rejoice  that  it  has  also  been  rec- 
ognized as  the  minister's  duty  to  foster  charity  and 
tolerance.  In  the  minister,  then,  would  seem  to  rest 
the  hope  of  that  better  time  to  come  when  both  of 
these  together  are  to  bless  the  world.  As  he  goes 
about  among  his  people  he  is  perpetually  saddened 
by  their  unnatural  divorce.  He  hears  some  member 
of  his  chur(ih  talk  about  truth.  He  listens  to  clear 
statements  of  the  Gospel  5  wise,  sound  discrimina- 
tions ;  true  scriptural  explanations  of  the  mysteries 
of  God  and  man  and  grace.  And  all  uttered  with  a 
deep  fervor  which  shows  how  the  man  loves  the  truth 
he  knows.  The  preacher  says,  "  What  clearness ! " 
"  What  faith  !"  and  rejoices  over  his  disciple.  And 
just  then  some  stray  word  drops  from  the  glowing 
lips  which  shows  with  what  a  strangeness,  amounting 
almost  to  antipathy,  this  believer  looks  upon  other 
people  who  hold  truth  differently  from  himself ;  with 
what  a  sense  of  narrow  and  exclusive  privilege  he 
treasures  his  orthodox  belief.  Or,  just  the  opposite. 
Some  hearer  of  your  preaching  delights  you  with  his 
ardent  charity  for  all  religions,  until  you  find  that 
he  has  no  real  religion  of  his  own.  He  upbraids  the 
bigot  without  ever  having  dreamed  of  the  intense  be- 
lief which  has  made  the  bigot  what  he  is.  In  either 
case  there  is  a  disappointment  in  the  result  of  your 
work  as  it  appears  in  these  two  men.     Belief  and 


THE  MINISTRY  FOB    OUR   AGE.  235 

cliarity  are  not  yet  in  their  true  association.  Mercy 
and  truth  have  not  yet  met  together.  And  you  set 
yourself,  as  you  walk  home  from  your  two  parish  calls, 
to  think  what  you  can  do  to  bring  about  their  union. 
What  the  minister  can  really  do  is  this.  I  give  it 
in  no  special  rules.  I  know  none.  If  I  did  I  should 
not  think  it  worth  my  while  or  yours  to  come  here 
and  repeat  the  little  methods  of  my  working  which 
would  not  help  you.  I  only  give  here,  as  I  have  tried 
to  all  along,  the  principles  for  which,  the  grace  of  Grod 
and  your  good  sense,  if  you  have  both,  will  find  for 
you  the  appHcations.  The  preacher  can,  first,  always 
insist  on  looking  and  on  making  his  people  look  on 
doctrines  not  as  ends  but  means ;  and  so,  if  other 
men  less  perfectly  reach  the  same  ends  by  means  of 
other  doctrines,  he  will  be  able  to  rejoice  in  their  at- 
tainment of  the  end  without  doing  dishonor  to  or 
valuing  one  whit  the  less  the  truth  which  as  it  seems 
to  him,  leads  much  more  directly  and  fully  to  the 
great  attainment.  "  Master,"  said  John,  "  we  saw  one 
casting  out  devils  in  thy  name ;  and  we  forbade  him, 
because  he  followeth  not  with  us."  And  Jesus  said, 
"  Forbid  him  not :  for  there  is  no  man  which  shall  do 
a  miracle  in  my  name,  that  can  lightly  speak  evil  of 
me.  For  he  that  is  not  against  us  is  on  our  part." 
I  suppose  the  day  is  past  when  people  strengthened 
their  sense  of  the  importance  of  the  Gospel  and  of 
their  privilege  in  hearing  it,  and  of  their  duty  to 


236  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

carry  it  to  the  heathen^  by  asserting  that  no  heathen 
could  be  saved  who  had  not  heard  it.  But  some- 
thing of  the  same  spirit  lingers  still  at  home.  The 
grosser  forms  of  an  error  will  often  disappear  before 
its  milder  ones.  And  many  men,  many  ministers,  are 
apt  to  emphasize  the  value  of  the  truth  to  themselves 
by  asserting  or  at  least  implying  consequences  which 
they  do  not  really  think  would  follow  on  its  rejection 
by  their  neighbors.  The  abandonment  of  such  a  way 
of  thinking  and  talking  would  be  a  great  step  forward 
towards  the  desired  union  of  belief  and  charity. 

And,  again,  the  preacher  may  industriously  and  dis- 
criminately  set  himseK  to  discern  what  there  is  good 
in  the  heart  of  the  system  that  he  tolerates,  and,  tol- 
erating it  for  that  good,  may  so  keep  his  absolute 
standards  and  his  love  for  his  own  truth  unimpaired. 
The  weakness  of  a  large  part  of  our  tolerance  for 
other  systems  than  our  own  is  that  it  is  not  discrim- 
inating. It  is  a  mere  sentiment.  It  thinks  that  it  is 
narrow  not  to  tolerate,  and  so  it  says,  "  Come  now 
and  let  us  tolerate ; "  but  it  never  dissects  out  that 
soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil  or  only  half  good 
which  should  make  it  possible  to  tolerate  them  cordi- 
ally and  be  glad  of  their  existence ;  and  so,  while  it 
wastes  its  cheap  and  unmeaning  compliments  upon 
them,  it  often  has  no  real  sympathy  with  them,  and 
either  despises  or  hates  them  underneath  its  compli- 
ments.    This  is  the  kind  of  tolerance  that  haunts  the 


THE  MINISTRY  FOB   OUE  AGE.  237 

anniversary  platforms  where  sects  are  met  together, 
where  men  seem  to  have  forgotten  that  there  are  any 
differences  between  them,  and  from  which  they  go 
back  to  their  pulpits  without  a  perceptible  mitigation 
in  the  blindness  with  which  they  misapprehend  the 
whole  position  of  their  neighbor  who  is  preaching  in 
the  next  street  to  them.  Toleration  as  a  mere  fashion 
and  sentiment  is  very  feeble.  It  must  study  and  ap- 
preciate that  which  is  good  in  what  it  tolerates.  To 
see  the  positive  truths  that  underhe  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic errors,  that  is  the  only  way  to  be  cordially  toler- 
ant of  Romanism  and  yet  keep  clearly  and  strongly 
one's  own  Protestant  belief. 

It  is  possible  for  earnest  belief  to  be  united  with 
ardent  charity,  and  it  is  for  us  who  preach  the  Gos- 
pel of  Christ  to  show  the  possibility  in  aU  our  life  and 
preaching.  Value  the  ends  of  life  more  than  its 
means,  watch  ever  for  the  soul  of  good  in  things  evil, 
and  the  soul  of  truth  in  things  false,  and  beside  the 
richer  influence  that  will  flow  out  from  your  life  on 
all  to  whom  you  minister,  you  will  do  something  to 
help  the  solution  of  that  unsolved  problem  of  the  hu- 
man mind  and  heart,  the  reconciliation  of  hearty  tol- 
erance with  strong  positive  belief. 

I  have  been  speaking  of  some  of  the  intellectual 
characteristics  of  our  time  which  the  preacher  must 
encounter.  They  are  very  prominent.  But  there  are 
other  characteristics  of  a  different   sort  that  force 


238        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

themselves  upon  us  almost  as  much.  We  talk  about 
the  scientific  character  of  our  age.  We  think  of  it  as 
wholly  given  up  to  the  search  after  knowledge.  But 
after  all  there  is  a  vast  preponderance  of  the  activity 
of  our  time  which  is  in  no  sense  scientific.  The  com- 
mercial and  social  and  political  movements  which  go 
on  about  us  cannot  be  said,  I  think,  to  have  any  more 
of  the  scientific  spirit,  to  show  any  more  tendency  to 
revert  to  facts  and  trust  to  established  principles, 
than  those  same  movements  have  always  manifested. 
The  trouble  with  these  great  continuous  and  univer- 
sal interests  of  hfe  no  doubt  has  its  connections  with 
the  danger  which  besets  the  study  of  science.  What 
we  have  to  fear  is  the  magnifying  of  second  causes  to 
the  forgetfulness  of  the  first  cause  and  the  final  cause 
of  things.  We  need  to  remember  as  we  preach  with 
what  enormous  urgency  this  danger  is  pressing  upon 
the  lives  of  the  men  and  women  to  whom  our  preach- 
ing is  addressed.  The  men  and  women  are  living  in 
the  midst  of  the  intense  but  superficial  excitement 
which  comes  of  the  unnatural  and  exclusive  vividness 
of  second  causes.  It  seems  to  the  business  man  as  if 
Wealth  were  the  king  of  everything ;  as  if  it  made 
reputation,  made  happiness,  almost  made  character. 
It  seems  to  the  man  or  woman  of  society  as  if  Fash- 
ion, in  some  supreme  reserve  of  queenship  where  she 
sits  and  whence  her  undisputed  mandates  come,  were 
the  supreme  arbiter  of  destiny.     It  is  the  frankness 


THE  MINISTRY  FOB   OUE  AGE.  239 

with  which  men  own  that  their  views  of  the  forces 
which  govern  things  stop  with  these  immediate 
causes,  wealth  and  fashion  and  the  pleasure  of  the 
senses,  that  appals  us  now.  They  do  not  even  go 
through  the  form  of  recognizing  some  spiritual  force 
farther  back.  ^^Alas,  there  are  no  more  hypocrites 
now,"  cried  the  Abbe  PouUe  in  France  in  the  last  cent- 
ury. And  it  was  indeed  a  symptom.  As  humanity 
is  constituted,  when  men  no  longer  give  themselves 
the  trouble  to  make  an  imitation,  it  proves  how  little 
the  reality  is  honored  5  and  the  very  carelessness  of 
men  about  affecting  any  thought  of  higher  causes  is 
an  indication  of  how  the  lower  causes  have  absorbed 
the  attention  and  are  trying  to  satisfy  the  needs  of 
men. 

This  is  the  world  to  which  we  have  to  bring  the 
Gospel,  the  story  that  begins  with  ^'  God  created  the 
heaven  and  the  earth,"  and  goes  on  with  the  record 
of  God's  power  and  love  until  it  comes  to  the  proph- 
ecy of  the  spiritual  Judgment  Day.  What  can  we 
do  to  get  that  story  of  the  one  first  cause  home  to  the 
heart  of  this  eager,  feverish  age  worshipping  in  its 
Pantheon  of  second  causes?  First,  O  my  brothers, 
who  are  to  be  pastors  of  the  Church,  we  can  take 
watchful  care  that  the  Church  herself  is  true  to  her 
belief  in  God  as  the  source  of  all  power.  One  of  the 
most  terrible  signs  of  how  the  spirit  of  sordidness  has 
filled  the  world  is  the  lamentable  extent  to  which  it 


240        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

has  pervaded  the  Church.  The  Church  is  constantly 
found  trusting  in  second  causes  as  if  she  knew  of  no 
fii'st  cause.  She  elaborates  her  machineries  as  if  the 
power  lay  in  them.  She  goes,  cap  in  hand,  to  rich 
men's  doors,  and  flatters  them  and  dares  not  tell  them 
of  their  sins  because  she  wants  their  money.  She  lets 
her  officers  conduct  her  affairs  with  all  the  arts  of  a 
transaction  on  the  street  or  an  intrigue  in  politics,  or 
only  shows  her  difference  of  standards  and  freedom 
from  responsibility  by  some  advantage  taken  which 
not  even  the  conscience  of  the  exchange  or  of  the 
caucus  would  allow.  She  degrades  the  dignity  of 
her  grand  commission  by  puerile  devices  for  raising 
money  and  frantic  efforts  to  keep  herself  before  the 
public  which  would  be  fit  only  for  the  sordid  ambi- 
tions of  a  circus  troupe.  You  must  cast  all  that  out 
of  the  church  with  which  you  have  to  do,  or  you  will 
make  its  pulpit  perfectly  powerless  to  speak  of  God 
to  our  wealth-ridden  and  pleasiu*e-loving  time.  You 
must  show  fii'st  that  His  Church  beUeves  in  Him  and 
trusts  Him  and  is  satisfied  in  Him,  or  you  will  cry  in 
vain  to  men  to  come  to  Him.  To  do  this,  you  must 
not  only  cast  out  at  your  doors  the  disreputablie  tinsel 
of  church  life  of  which  I  have  been  speaking;  you 
must  believe  in  man  as  the  child  of  God  enough  to 
preach  to  him  at  once  the  highest  spiritual  truth 
about  his  Father.  Many  a  well-meaning  preacher  is 
all  wrong  here,  I  think.     He  says,  ^'  You  must  take 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR   OUR   AGE.  241 

meu  as  you  find  them.  You  must  speak  to  such 
faculties  and  perceptions  as  are  awake  in  them." 
And  so  because  he  sees  the  economical  perceptions 
very  acute  in  our  commercial  time,  he  preaches  the 
economy  of  goodness.  He  shows  men  how  holiness 
will  pay.  He  knows  there  is  a  higher  truth,  but  he 
cannot  trust  men  to  hear  it.  He  hopes  to  lead  them 
on  to  it  by  and  by.  Ah,  that  is  all  wrong.  There  is 
in  every  man's  heart,  if  you  could  only  trust  it,  a 
power  of  appreciating  genuine  spiritual  truth  j  of  be- 
ing moved  into  unselfish  gratitude  by  the  love  of  God. 
Continually  he  who  trusts  it  finds  it  there.  A  hun- 
dred men  stand  like  the  Spanish  magnates  on  the  shore 
and  say,  "  You  must  not  venture  far  away.  There  is 
no  land  beyond.  Stay  here  and  develop  what  we 
have."  One  brave  and  trustful  man  like  Columbus 
believes  that  the  complete  world  is  complete,  and 
sails  for  a  fair  land  beyond  the  sea  and  finds  it.  The 
minister  who  succeeds  is  the  minister  who  in  the 
midst  of  a  sordid  age  trusts  the  heart  of  man  who  is 
the  child  of  God,  and  knows  that  it  is  not  all  soi'did, 
and  boldly  speaks  to  it  of  God  his  Father  as  if  he  ex- 
pected it  to  answer.  And  it  does  answer ;  and  other 
preachers  who  have  not  believed  in  man,  and  have 
talked  to  him  in  low  planes  and  preached  to  him  half 
gospels  which  they  thought  were  all  that  he  could 
stand,  look  on  and  wonder  at  their  brother-preacher's 
unaccountable  success.     There  have  always  been  il- 


242  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

lustrations  of  this.  There  never  were  more  striking 
ones  than  in  our  time.  With  all  the  sordidness  of 
our  time,  the  preachers  that  have  been  the  most  pow- 
erful have  been  the  most  spiritual.  His  theology  has 
something  of  the  taint  of  mercenariness  about  it,  but 
of  all  the  great  revivalists  I  do  not  know  where  we 
shall  find  any  one  who  has  preached  more  constantly 
to  the  good  that  there  is  in  man,  and  assumed  in  all 
men  a  power  of  spiritual  action,  than  Mr.  Moody. 
There  is  nothing  finer  than  to  see  a  soul,  which 
amazes  the  men  in  whom  it  rises,  rise  up  in  men, 
when  he  who  trusts  it  to  answer  to  the  highest  call 
speaks  to  it  of  the  love  of  God.  In  all  your  preach- 
ing echo  the  ministry  of  Jesus,  who  spoke  to  the  low- 
est and  most  sensual  people  directly  of  the  everlasting 
love,  and  by  the  trust  He  had  in  them  brought  them 
to  His  Father. 

I  do  not  think  that  one  could  rightly  suggest  the 
characteristics  of  our  time  which  a  minister  encount- 
ers without  naming  a  tendency  to  sentimentalness 
which  shows  itself  in  a  great  deal  of  our  religion,  and 
which,  both  directly  and  indirectly,  does  our  work 
great  harm.  It  is  connected,  with  the  other  features 
of  the  time,  with  the  prevalence  of  doubt  and  unbe- 
lief. It  is  most  natural  that  when  a  multitude  of 
men  have  more  or  less  deliberately  taken  up  the  idea 
that  the  foundations  of  faith  are  shaken,  when  they 
are  afraid  to  say  that  they  hold  the  truths  of  religion 


THE  MINISTRY  FOB   OUR  AGE.  243 

to  be  literally  and  absolutely  true,  when  even  the  .au- 
thority of  religion  as  the  lord  of  morality  is  dis- 
tui'bed,  and  men  are  looking  somewhere  else  than  to 
God  for  a  constant  reason  why  they  should  do  right, 
and  when  yet,  with  all  this,  the  impulses  of  reverence 
and  worship  remain  strong,  it  is  inevitable  then  that 
a  certain  religion  of  sentiment  should  grow  up,  of 
which  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  much  it  believes,  but 
which  delights  in  glowing  and  vague  utterances  of 
feeling.  No  one  can  read  our  hymns,  whether  they 
be  of  the  rudest  revival  sort  or  the  translated  mediae- 
valisms  of  ritualism,  without  feeling  what  I  mean. 
They  are  very  beautiful  often,  but,  compared  with 
the  hymns  that  our  fathers  sang,  they  are  weak. 
They  lack  thought,  and  no  religion  that  does  not 
think  is  strong.  It  may  be  in  reaction  from  the  way 
in  which  many  of  the  old  hymns  were  made  to  labor 
with  a  process  of  reasoning  that  struggled  on  most 
unlyrically  from  verse  to  verse  that  the  favorite 
hymn  of  to-day  discards  connected  thought  and 
seems  to  try  only  to  utter  moods  of  mystic  feeling,  or 
to  depict  some  scene  in  which  the  spiritual  parable 
is  apt  to  be  lost  in  the  brightness  of  the  sensuous 
imagery.  I  think  that  the  same  thing  is  true  of 
prayers.  A  prayer  must  have  thought  in  it.  The 
thought  may  overburden  it  so  that  its  wings  of  devo- 
tion are  fastened  down  to  its  sides  and  it  cannot  as- 
cend.    Then  it  is  no  prayer,  only  a  meditation  or  a 


244  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

contemplation.  But  to  take  the  thought  ont  of  a 
prayer  does  not  insure  its  going  up  to  God.  It  may 
be  too  light  as  well  as  too  heavy  to  ascend.  I  saw 
once  in  a  shop- window  in  London  a  placard  which 
simply  announced  "Limp  Prayers.''  It  described,  I 
believe,  a  kind  of  Prayer  Book  in  a  certain  sort  of 
binding  which  was  for  sale  within  ;  but  it  brought  to 
mind  many  a  prayer  to  which  one  had  listened,  in 
which  he  could  not  join,  out  of  which  had  been  left 
the  whole  backbone  of  thought,  and  to  which  he  could 
attach  none  of  his  own  heart's  desires. 

I  know  that  there  have  always  been  sentimentalists 
in  religion.  Mysticism,  which  at  its  best  is  a  very 
high  and  thorough  action  of  the  whole  nature  in 
apprehending  spiritual  truth,  is  always  degenerating 
into  sentimentalism.  But  it  is  dangerous  to-day  be- 
cause it  so  frankly  claims  for  itself  that  it  is  religion. 
Disowning  doctrine  and  depreciating  law,  it  asserts 
that  religion  belongs  to  feeling,  and  that  there  is  no 
truth  but  love.  You  will  meet  it  surely  in  your  first 
parish  at  the  very  door.  Some  of  the  sweetest  and 
noblest  natures  there  are  sure  to  be  full  of  it,  and 
show  it  to  you  very  winningly.  Others  will  set  it  be- 
fore you  as  mere  weak  self-indulgence.  You  wiU  find 
many  of  the  strongest  brains  and  consciences  in  town 
separated  entirely  from  the  church  because  they  con- 
sider it,  as  they  would  say  if  they  spoke  their  whole 
minds  out  to  you,  to  be  the  very  shop  and  banquet 


THE  MINISTRY  FOB   OUR  AGE,  245 

room  of  sentimentalism.  You  cannot  ignore  this  as 
you  preach.  You  cannot  help  struggling  against  its 
influence  upon  yourself.  The  hard  theology  is  bad. 
The  soft  theology  is  worse.  You  must  count  your 
work  unsatisfactory  unless  you  waken  men's  brains 
and  stir  their  consciences.  Let  them  see  clearly  that 
you  value  no  feeling  which  is  not  the  child  of  truth 
and  the  father  of  duty.  And  to  let  them  see  that  you 
value  no  other  feeling  you  must  value  no  other  feel- 
ing either  in  yourseK  or  them. 

It  is  natural  for  sentimentalism  and  scepticism  to 
go  together,  like  the  fever  and  the  chill,  and  the  same 
mixture  of  deeper  faith  and  more  conscientious  duty 
must  be  medicine  for  both. 

"We  ministers  cannot  help  noting  with  interest'/^ 
among  the  symptoms  of  our  time  the  way  in  which 
the  preacher  himself  is  regarded.  To  remark  the 
changed  attitude  which  the  people  generally  hold  to- 
wards ministers  is  the  most  familiar  commonplace  j  to 
moui-n  over  it  as  a  sign  of  decadence  in  the  religious 
spirit  is  the  habit  of  some  people.  But  the  reasons 
of  it  are  plain  enough  and  have  been  often  pointed 
out.  The  preacher  is  no  longer  the  manifest  superior 
of  other  men  in  wit  and  wisdom.  That  deference 
which  was  once  paid  to  the  minister's  office,  upon  the 
reasonable  presumption  that  the  man  who  occupied  it 
was  better  educated,  more  large  in  his  ideas,  a  better 


246        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

reasoner,  a  more  trustworthy  guide  in  all  the  various 
affairs  of  life  than  other  men,  if  it  were  paid  still 
would  either  be  the  perpetuation  of  an  old  habit,  or 
would  be  paid  to  the  office  purely  for  itself  without 
any  presumption  at  all  about  the  man.  This  latter 
could  not  be  long  possible ;  no  dignity  of  office  can 
secure  men's  respect  for  itself  continuously  unless  it 
can  show  a  worthy  character  in  those  who  hold  it.  I 
am  glad  that  the  mere  forms  of  reverence  for  the 
preacher's  office  have  so  far  passed  away.  I  am  not 
making  a  virtue  of  necessity.  I  rejoice  at  it.  Noth- 
ing could  be  worse  for  us  than  for  men  to  keep  tell- 
ing us  by  deferential  forms  that  we  are  the  wisest 
of  men  when  their  shelves  are  full  of  books  with 
far  wiser  words  in  them  than  the  best  that  we  can 
preach;  or  that  we  are  the  most  eloquent  of  men 
when  there  are  better  orators  by  the  score  on  every 
side ;  or  that  we  are  the  best  of  men  when  we  know 
of  sainthoods  among  the  most  obscure  souls  before 
which  we  stand  ashamed.  No  manly  man  is  satisfied 
with  any  ex-officio  estimate  of  his  character.  Whether 
it  makes  him  better  or  worse  than  he  is,  he  cares 
nothing  for  it.  And  so  the  nearer  that  ministers 
come  to  being  judged  like  other  men  just  for  what 
they  are,  the  more  they  ought  to  rejoice,  the  more,  I 
think,  they  do  rejoice.  But  what  then "?  Is  the  min- 
ister's sacred  office  nothing  ?  Does  not  his  truth  gain 
authority  and  his  example  urgency  from  the  position 


THE  MINISTRY  FOB    OUR  AGE.  247 

where  he  stands !  Indeed  they  do.  It  seems  to  me 
that  the  best  privilege  which  can  be  given  to  any  man 
is  a  position  which  shaU  stimulate  him  to  his  best  and 
which  shall  make  his  best  most  effective.  And  that 
is  just  what  is  given  to  the  minister.  An  official 
position  which  should  substitute  some  other  power 
for  the  best  powers  of  the  man  himself,  and  should 
make  him  seem  effective  beyond  his  real  force,  would 
be  an  injury  to  him  and  ultimately  would  be  recog- 
nized as  an  empty  sham  itself.  I  quarrel  with  no 
man  for  his  conscientious  belief  about  the  high  and 
separate  commission  of  the  Christian  ministry.  I 
only  quarrel  with  the  man  who,  resting  satisfied  with 
what  he  holds  to  be  his  high  commission,  is  not  eager 
to  match  it  with  a  high  character.  The  more  you 
think  yourself  different  from  other  men  because  you 
are  a  minister,  the  more  try  to  be  different  from  other 
men  by  being  more  fully  what  all  men  ought  to  be. 
That  is  a  High  Churchmanship  of  which  we  cannot 
have  too  much. 

I  hold,  then,  that  the  Christian  ministry  has  stiU  in 
men's  esteem  aU  that  is  essentially  valuable,  and  all 
that  is  really  good  for  it  to  have.  It  has  a  place  of 
utterance  more  powerful  and  sacred  than  any  other 
in  the  world.  Then  comes  the  question.  What  has  it 
to  utter!  The  pedestal  is  still  there.  Men  will  not 
gather  about  it  as  they  once  did,  perhaps,  without  re- 
gard to  the  statue  that  stands  upon  it.     But  if  a  truly 


248  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

good  statue  stands  there  the  world  can  see  it  as  it 
could  if  it  stood  nowhere  else. 

There  are  two  great  faults  of  the  ministry  which 
come,  one  of  them  from  ignoring,  the  other  from  re- 
belling against,  this  change  in  the  attitude  of  the 
minister  and  the  people  towards  each  other.  The 
first  is  the  perpetual  assertion  of  the  minister's  au- 
thority for  the  truth  which  he  teaches.  To  claim 
that  men  should  believe  what  we  teach  them  because 
we  teach  it  to  them,  and  not  because  they  see  it  to  be 
true,  is  to  assume  a  place  which  God  does  not  give  us 
and  men  will  not  acknowledge  for  us.  Many  a  Chris- 
tian minister  needs  to  be  sent  back  to  him  whom  we 
call  the  heathen  Socrates,  to  read  these  noble  words 
in  the  "  Phsedo  "  —  which  whole  dialogue,  by  the  way, 
is  itself  no  unworthy  pattern  of  the  best  quahties  of 
preaching.  "  You,  if  you  take  my  advice,  will  think 
little  about  Socrates,  but  a  great  deal  about  Truth." 

And  the  other  fault  is  the  constant  desire  to  make 
people  hear  us  who  seem  determined  to  forget  us. 
This  is  the  fault  of  the  sensational  preacher.  A 
large  part  of  what  is  called  sensational  preaching  is 
simply  the  effort  of  a  man  who  has  no  faith  in  his 
office  or  in  the  essential  power  of  truth  to  keep  him- 
self before  people's  eyes  by  some  kind  of  intellectual 
fantasticalness.  It  is  a  pursuit  of  brightness  and 
vivacity  of  thought  for  its  own  sake,  which  seems  to 
come  from  a  certain  almost  desperate  determination 


THE  MINISTRY  FOB   OUE  AGE.  249 

of  the  sensational  minister  that  he  will  not  be  forgot- 
ten. I  think  there  is  a  great  deal  of  nervous  uneasi- 
ness of  mind  which  shows  a  shaken  confidence  in 
one's  position.  It  struggles  for  cleverness.  It  lives 
by  making  points.  It  is  fatal  to  that  justice  of 
thought  which  alone  in/ the  long  run  commands  con- 
fidence and  carries  weight.  The  man  who  is  always 
trying  to  attract  attention  and  be  brilliant  counts  the 
mere  sober  effort  after  absolute  truth  and  justice  dull. 
It  is  more  tempting  to  be  clever  and  unjust  than  to 
be  serious  and  just.  Every  preacher  has  constantly 
to  make  his  choice  which  he  will  be.  It  does  not  be- 
long to  men,  like  angels,  to  be  "  ever  bright  and  fair  " 
together.  And  the  anxious  desire  for  glitter  is  one 
of  the  signs  of  the  dislodgment  of  the  clerical  position 
in  our  time. 

There  is  a  possible  life  of  great  nobleness  and  use- 
fulness for  the  preacher  who,  frankly  recognizing  and 
cordially  accepting  the  attitude  towards  his  office 
which  he  finds  on  the  world's  part,  preaches  truth 
and  duty  on  their  own  intrinsic  authority,  and  wins 
personal  power  and  influence  because  he  does  not 
seek  them,  but  seeks  the  prevalence  of  righteousness 
and  the  salvation  of  men's  souls. 

The  relation  of  our  time  to  the  Bible  is  another  JH*- 
subject  which  must  interest  a  preacher  very  deeply. 
The  Bible  is  the  authority  by  which  we  preach;  and 
to  find  the  people  whom  our  preaching  interests  so 


250        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

largely  uninterested  in  and  ignorant  of  the  source 
from  which  our  truth  is  drawn  must  awaken  some 
questions  as  to  whether  our  preaching  is  wholly 
right.  I  do  not  speak  now  of  the  prevalent  doubts 
about  the  Bible,  though  they  are,  of  coui'se,  connected 
very  closely,  both  as  cause  and  effect,  with  men's 
ignorance  about  it.  I  speak  merely  of  the  fact  of 
that  undoubted  ignorance.  Who  is  there  among  our 
people  who  knows  the  Old  Testament?  Where  are 
the  people  that  in  any  real  sense  know  the  New  ? 

If  we  look  for  the  reasons  of  such  ignorance  about 
a  book  which  lies  on  everybody's  table,  and  whose 
name  is  on  everybody's  lips,  they  are  not  hard  to 
find.  First  there  is  in  our  time  a  great  reaction  from 
the  behef  that  men  once  had  in  the  saving  power  of 
the  Bible.  Men  who  have  read  a  book  not  because  it 
was  true  or  because  they  wanted  to  get  at  its  lessons, 
but  because  they  thought  it  was  safe  to  read  it  and 
unsafe  not  to  read  it,  just  as  soon  as  the  notion  of 
safety  is  loosened  from  it,  will  be  less  ready  to  care 
for  its  truth  and  to  feel  its  power  than  that  of  other 
books.  This  is  human  nature.  The  stronger  feeling 
about  the  Bible  has  kept  down  the  more  familiar  feel- 
ing which  attaches  us  to  other  books.  Another  rea- 
son is,  of  course,  the  crowd  of  other  books,  their 
cheapness  and  their  apparent  pressingness.  Even 
the  man  who  knows  that  the  Bible  is  the  best  of 
books  will  read  the  last  new  treatise  on  rehgion  in- 


THE  MINISTRY  FOB   OUR  AGE.  251 

stead  of  the  Bible,  because  he  knows  the  Bible  be- 
longs to  all  ages,  and  can  never  pass  out  of  date, 
while  with  this  "latest  publication"  it  is  to-day  or 
never.  And  yet  another  reason  is  the  prevalent  dis- 
position to  consider  the  Bible  the  clergy's  book.  We 
wonder  at  the  pusillaniniity  with  which  the  people  of 
the  Middle  Ages  and  the  Romanists  of  to-day  have 
submitted  to  restrictions  on  the  reading  of  the  Bible, 
and  to  the  acceptance  of  whatever  account  of  it  their 
preachers  chose  to  give.  The  real  truth  is  that  they 
like  this  state  of  things ;  and  many  of  our  Protestants 
like  it  too,  and  of  their  own  free  will  treat  the  Bible 
so  exactly  as  the  Mediaeval  Christian  was  compelled 
to  treat  it  that  it  ought  not  to  seem  strange.  And 
another  reason  is  that  the  clergy,  by  their  unreal  fan- 
tastic treatment  of  the  Bible,  often  do  what  they  can 
to  make  the  people  think  that  it  is  indeed  unintelligi- 
ble except  to  one  who  holds  a  very  complicated  key, 
and  so  that  it  is  not  for  the  hke  of  them  to  touch  it. 
This  is  the  evil  of  all  unreal  exegesis.  It  throws  an 
unreal  air  about  the  book  of  God.  I  heard  of  a  ser- 
mon on  the  fii'st  verse  of  the  Forty-first  Psalm  which 
declared  it  to  be  a  statement  of  the  mission  of  Christ 
and  the  scheme  of  the  Atonement.  Imagine  a  believ- 
ing disciple  going  home  after  that  sermon  and  read- 
ing his  Bible  with  the  slightest  hope  of  knowing  what 
it  meant !  And  another  reason  still  is  our  unbiblical 
preaching.     I  mean  our  preaching  about  all  topics 


252  LECTUBES   ON  PRE  ACHING. 

with  various  degrees  of  wisdom  but  with  nothing 
which  would  suggest  that  what  we  give  men  is  only 
a  few  drops  out  of  a  spring  of  truth  and  life,  and  so 
would  send  them  eagerly  to  the  fountain  to  drink 
their  fill. 

Against  these  tendencies  to  make  the  Bible  unreal 
and  uninteresting  there  has  come  the  protest  of  tlu^ 
new  way  of  treating  it  and  the  new  books  about  it. 
I  know  the  danger  of  superficialness  which  attends 
the  reahstic  treatment  of  the  Bible.  I  know  how  apt 
it  is  to  carry  the  mind  up  to  a  certain  point  of  ama- 
teur interest  and  leave  it  there.  Certainly  no  one  can 
praise  it  except  as  an  introduction  to  a  spiritual  rich- 
ness which  is  far  deeper  than  itself,  but  in  our  day 
it  is  something  to  be  very  glad  of  that  Milman  and 
Stanley,  and  Farrar  and  the  author  of  "  Ecce  Homo," 
in  literature,  and  Holman  Hunt  and  Bida,  in  the  re- 
gion of  art,  have  made  the  outer  life  of  the  Bible  live 
anew,  and  by  sweeping  aside  the  mist  of  unreality 
that  hung  about  its  door  have  opened  the  way  for 
a  deeper  entrance  into  its  spirit  than  man  has  yet 
attained. 

There  is  need  of  every  special  effort  to  make  men 
know  the  Bible.  The  Bible  class,  the  expository  lect- 
ure, the  illustrative  picture,  none  of  them  can  do  too 
much.  But  there  is  yet  greater  need  that  you  and  I 
who  preach  should  let  the  people  see  that  we  are  men 
of  the  Bible,  that  we  know  its  letter  and  are  possessed 


THE  MINISTRY  FOB   012  AGE.  253 

by  its  spirit,  that  out  of  it  directly  comes  the  support 
of  our  own  religious  life  and  the  food  which  we  offer 
in  our  preaching. 

I  must  not  let  my  lecture  grow  any  longer.  I 
have  tried  to  point  out  to  you  some  of  the  peculiari- 
ties of  our  time  which  we  as  preachers  must  en- 
counter. I  must  not  close  without  begging  you  not 
to  be  ashamed  or  afraid  of  the  age  you  live  in,  and 
least  of  all  to  talk  of  it  in  a  tone  of  weak  despair. 
In  the  beginning  of  the  last  century  many  men 
talked  of  Christianity  as  if  it  were  an  eifete  super- 
stition. And  yet  behold  the  new  life  which  has 
come  forth  since  from  that  which  men  then  called 
dead.  The  state  of  things  which  then  existed  may 
seem  to  be  renewed,  though  it  is  not  possible  for  men 
to  be  as  wholly  unbelieving  in  the  nineteenth  century 
as  they  were  in  the  eighteenth.  But  out  of  what  men 
now  call  a  slow  death  new  life  will  come.  In  many 
ways  we  can  see  clearly  that  it  is  not  death,  but  some 
strange  change  and  progi-ess  of  the  methods  of  life 
by  which  we  are  surrounded.  To  be  thoroughly  in 
sympathy  with  the  age,  to  admire  everything  in  it 
that  is  admirable,  to  rejoice  in  its  great  achievements, 
to  see  the  beauty  of  the  superb  material  structure 
which  it  is  building  for  the  better  spirituality  which 
is  to  come  to  dwell  in  it,  to  love  to  trace  the  strange 
nomadic  currents  of  spiritual  desire  which  run,  often 


254  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

grotesquely  or  frantically,  through  its  tumultuous 
life,  to  see  with  joy  how  its  new  needs  bring  out 
new  sides  of  helpfulness  in  the  ever  helpful  Gospel 
of  Christ,  this  is  the  true  culture  of  a  preacher  for 
our  time.  He  believes  in  it  and  loves  it,  and  sees  its 
great  strong  faults  against  the  background  of  its 
noble  quaUties.  He  thanks  God,  who  sent  him  here 
to  work ;  for  he  is  sure  that  while  there  have  been 
many  centuries  in  which  it  was  easier,  there  has  been 
none  in  which  it  was  more  interesting  or  inspiring  for 
a  man  to  preach. 


THE  VALUE  OF   THE  HUMAN  SOUL. 


rpHERE  is  a  power  which  lies  at  the  centre  of  all 
-^  success  in  preaching,  and  whose  influence  reaches 
out  to  the  circumference,  and  is  essential  everywhere. 
Without  its  presence  we  cannot  imagine  the  most 
brilliant  talents  making  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel  in 
the  fullest  sense.  Where  it  is  largely  present  it  is 
wonderful  how  many  deficiencies  count  for  nothing. 
It  has  the  characteristics  wliich  belong  to  all  the  most 
essential  powers.  It  is  able  to  influence  the  whole 
life  as  one  general  and  pervading  motive  5  and  it  can 
also  press  on  each  particular  action  with  peculiar 
force.  Under  its  compulsion  a  man  first  becomes  a 
preacher,  and  every  sermon  that  he  preaches  is  more 
or  less  consciously  shaped  by  its  pressure;  as  the 
whole  round  world  and  each  round  atom  are  shaped 
and  held  in  shape  by  the  same  laws.  Without  this 
power  preaching  is  almost  sure  to  become  either  a 
struggle  of  ambition  or  a  burden  of  routine.  With 
it  preaching  is  an  ever  fresh  delight.     The  power  is 

255 


256        LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

the  value  of  the  human  soul,  felt  by  the  preacher, 
and  inspiring  all  his  work. 

The  power  of  that  motive  has  been  assumed  in  all 
that  I  have  said  to  you.  But  it  seems  to  me  to  be  so 
supremely  important ;  the  ministry  which  is  full  of  it 
is  so  rich ;  the  ministry  which  lacks  it  is  so  poor,  that 
I  determined,  when  I  undertook  the  duty  which  I 
complete  to-day,  that  this  last  lecture  shoidd  be  given 
to  a  serious  consideration  of  the  importance  and 
value  of  this  mainspring,  wliich  lies  coiled  up  within 
all  the  complicated  machinery  of  the  ministry,  the 
realized  value  of  the  human  souL 

As  to  its  importance,  we  get  our  clearest  impression 
if  we  look  at  the  earthly  ministry  of  Jesus.  There 
are  many  accounts  to  be  given  of  His  wondrous  work. 
People  may  say  many  ingenious  things  about  it,  and 
many  of  them  are  true.  But  we  are  sure  that  he  has 
put  his  hand  most  certainly  upon  the  central  power 
of  Christ's  ministry  who  holds  up  before  us  the  in- 
tense value  which  the  Saviour  alw^ays  set  upon  the 
souls  for  w^hich  He  lived  and  died.  It  shines  in 
everything  He  says  and  does.  It  looks  out  from  His 
eyes  when  they  are  happiest  and  when  they  are  sad- 
dest. It  trembles  in  the  most  loving  consolations, 
and  thunders  in  the  most  passionate  rebukes  wliich 
come  from  His  lips.  It  is  the  inspiration  at  once  of 
His  pity  and  His  indignation.  And  it  has  made  the 
few  persons  on  whom  it  chanced  to  fall,  and  in  whose 


THE    VALUE   OF   THE  HUMAN  SOUL.  257 

histories  it  found  its  illustrations,  the  men  and 
women  who  represented  humanity  about  Him  in  Pal- 
estine— Nicodemus,  Peter,  John,  the  Pharisees,  the 
Magdalen,  the  woman  of  Samaria,  and  all  the  rest — 
luminous  forever  with  its  light.  That  power  still 
continues  wherever  the  same  value  of  the  human  soul 
is  present.  If  we  could  see  how  precious  the  human 
soul  is  as  Clirist  saw  it,  our  ministry  would  approach 
the  eifectiveness  of  Christ's.  "I  am  not  convinced 
by  what  you  say.  I  am  not  sure  that  I  cannot 
answer  every  one  of  your  arguments,"  said  a  man 
with  whom  a  preacher  had  been  pleading,  "but  one 
thing  which  I  confess  I  cannot  understand.  It  puz- 
zles me,  and  makes  me  feel  a  power  in  what  you 
say.  It  is  why  you  should  care  enough  for  me  to  ; 
take  all  this  trouble,  and  to  labor  with  me  as  if  you 
cared  for  my  soul."  It  is  a  power  which  every  man 
must  feel.  It  inspires  the  preacher ;  and  his  hearers, 
catching  its  influence,  become  soft  and  ready  to  re- 
ceive the  truth.  It  is  strength  in  the  arm  which 
strikes,  and  tenderness  in  the  rock  which  receives  the 
blow. 

The  other  motives  of  the  minister's  work  seem  to 
me  to  stand  around  this  great  central  motive  as  the 
staff  officers  stand  around  a  general.  He  needs  them. 
They  execute  his  commands.  He  could  not  do  his 
work  without  them.  But  he  is  not  dependent  upon 
them  as  they  are  upon  him ;  any  one  of  them  might 


i 


258  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

fall  away  and  he  could  still  fight  the  battle.  The 
power  of  the  battle  is  in  him.  If  he  falls  the  cause 
is  ruined.  So  stand  the  subordinate- motives  of  the 
ministry  around  the  commanding  motive,  the  realized 
value  of  the  human  soul.  They  are  the  motives 
which  I  have  had  occasion  to  dwell  on  one  by  one  in 
the  course  of  these  lectures.  They  are  the  pleasure 
of  work,  the  mere  dehght  in  the  exercise  of  powers, 
which  is  natural  to  any  man  who  is  healthy  both  in 
body  and  mind  5  the  love  of  influence,  that  gratifica- 
tion in  feeling  our  life  touch  another  life  for  some 
good  result,  which  is  also  natural  and  healthy  5  the 
perception  of  order,  that  love  of  regulated  movement, 
of  the  rhythm  of  righteousness  in  the  lives  and  ways 
of  men,  which  in  its  higher  forms  is  noble,  though  in 
the  lower  it  degenerates  into  routine ;  and  lastly  the 
pure  concern  for  truth,  the  pleasure  in  seeing  right 
ideas  take  the  place  of  vrrong  ideas,  which  may  be 
quite  separate  from  any  regard  for  the  interest  of 
the  person  in  whom  the  change  takes  place.  These 
are  the  nobler  members  of  the  staff  of  the  great  gen- 
eral. There  are  more  ignoble  ones  who  volunteer 
their  services  and  wear  something  like  his  uniform 
and  cannot  always  be  distinguished  from  his  true  ser- 
vants 5  such  as  emulation,  and  the  love  of  fame,  and 
the  pride  of  opinion,  and  the  enjoyment  of  congenial 
society.  I  will  not  dwell  on  those.  These  others  are 
the  real  staff  of  the  general.     But  when  we  look  at 


THE    VALUE   OF  THE  HUMAN  SOUL.  259 

their  group,  liow  the  commanding  motive  whom  they 
serve  towers  up  far  above  them  all.  They  get  their 
highest  dignity  from  serving  him.  For  in  his  service 
each  of  them,  which  is  abstract  in  itself,  comes  into 
actual  contact  with  man;  and  no  abstract  principle 
has  shown  its  full  power  or  given  its  full  pleasure 
until  it  has  opened  the  essential  relations  which  exist 
between  it  and  human  nature.  It  is  the  great  privi- 
lege of  the  ministry  that  it  is  kept  in  constant  neces- 
sary contact  with  mankind.  Therein  lies  its  healthi- 
ness. Man  in  his  mystery  and  wonderfulness  is  more 
full  of  the  suggestion  of  God  than  either  abstract 
truth  or  physical  nature.  And  so  the  truth  preacher, 
in  spite  of  his  imperfect  opportunities  for  study,  in 
spite  of  his  separation  from  the  beauty  of  the  natural 
world,  has  the  chance  to  know  more  of  God  than  the 
profoundest  speculative  philosophy  or  the  most  ex- 
quisite scenery  of  earth  could  reveal  to  him. 

Let  me  try,  then,  to  point  out  to  you  what  some  of 
the  effects  will  be  in  a  man's  preaching  from  a  true 
sense  of  the  value  of  the  human  soul,  by  which  I  mean 
a  high  estimate  of  the  capacity  of  the  spiritual  nature, 
a  keen  and  constant  appreciation  of  the  attainments 
to  which  it  may  be  brought.  And  first  of  all  it  helps 
to  rescue  the  Gospel  which  we  preach  from  a  sort  of 
unnaturalness  and  incongruity  which  is  very  apt  to 
cling  to  it.  This  is,  I  think,  very  important.  Con- 
sider what  it  is  that  you  are  to  declare  week  after 


260  LECTUEES   ON  PEE  ACHING. 

week  to  the  men  and  women  who  come  to  hear  you. 
The  mighty  truths  of  Incarnation  and  Atonement  are 
your  themes.  You  tell  them  of  the  birth  and  life  and 
death  of  Jesus  Christ.  You  picture  the  adorable  love 
and  the  mysterious  sacrifice  of  the  Saviour.  And 
you  bind  all  this  to  their  lives.  You  tell  them  that 
in  a  true  sense  all  this  was  certainly  for  them.  I  do 
not  know  what  you  are  made  of,  if  sometimes,  as  you 
preach,  there  does  not  come  into  your  mind  a  thought 
of  incongruity.  What  are  you,  you  and  these  people 
to  whom  you  preach,  that  for  you  the  central  affec- 
tion of  the  universe  should  have  been  stirred  ?  You 
know  your  own  life.  You  know  something  of  the 
lives  they  live.  You  look  into  their  faces  as  you 
preach  to  them.  Where  is  the  end  worthy  of  aU  this 
ministry  of  almighty  grace  which  you  have  been  de- 
scribing ?  Is  it  possible  that  all  this  once  took  place 
and,  by  the  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  is  a  perpet- 
ual power  in  the  world,  merely  that  these  machine- 
lives  might  run  a  little  truer,  or  that  a  series  of  rules 
might  be  established  by  which  the  current  workings 
of  society  might  move  more  smoothly  I  That,  which 
men  sometimes  make  the  purpose  of  it  all,  is  too  un- 
worthy. The  engine  is  too  coarse  to  have  so  fine  a 
fire  under  it.  You  must  see  something  deeper.  You 
must  discern  in  aU  these  men  and  women  some  inher- 
ent preciousness  for  which  even  the  marvel  of  the  In- 
carnation and   the   agony  of   Calvary  was  not  too 


THE    VALUE   OF  THE  HUMAN  SOUL.  261 

gi*eat,  or  it  is  impossible  that  you  should  keep  your 
faith  in  those  stupendous  truths  which  Bethlehem 
and  Calvary  offer  to  us.  Some  source  of  fire  from 
which  these  dimmed  sparks  come,  some  possible  re- 
newal of  the  fire  which  is  in  them  still,  some  sight  of 
the  education  through  which  each  soul  is  passing,  and 
some  suggestion  of  the  special  personal  perfectness  to 
which  each  may  attain  —  all  this  must  brighten  be- 
fore you,  as  you  look  at  them ;  and  then  the  truths  of 
your  theology  shall  not  be  thrown  into  confusion  nor 
faded  into  unreality  by  your  ministry  to  men.  The 
best  thing  in  a  minister's  life  is  the  action  of  his 
works  and  his  faith  on  one  another ;  his  experience  of 
the  deeper  value  of  the  human  soul  making  the  won- 
ders of  his  faith  more  credible,  and  the  truths  of  his 
faith  always  revealing  to  him  a  deeper  and  deeper 
value  in  the  soul. 

I  think  that  nobody  can  preach  with  the  best  power 
who  is  not  possessed  with  a  sense  of  the  mysterious- 
ness  of  the  human  life  which  he  preaches  to.  It  must 
seem  to  him  capable  of  indefinite  enlargement  and  re- 
finement. He  must  see  it  in  each  new  person  as 
something  original  and  new.  This  must  be  some- 
thing which  belongs  to  his  whole  conception  of  man 
as  the  child  of  God.  It  must  not  be  the  mere  inspira- 
tion of  his  whim,  attributed  in  great  richness  to  some 
lives  which  chance  to  take  his  fancy,  but  ignored  in 
others.     He  must  see  it  in  all  men  simply  as  men. 


262        LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

When  lie  undertakes  to  lead  them  he  mnst  feel  the 
mystery  and  spontaneity  of  the  lives  that  he  takes 
under  his  teaching.  He  must  be  a  careful  student 
of  the  characters  he  trains.  He  cannot  carry  people 
over  the  route  of  his  ministry  as  a  ferryman  carries 
passengers  across  the  river,  always  running  his  boat 
in  the  same  line  and  never  even  asking  the  names  of 
the  people  whom  he  carries.  He  must  count  himself 
rather  like  the  tutor  of  a  family  of  princes,  who,  with 
careful  study  of  their  several  dispositions,  trains  the 
royal  nature  of  each  for  the  special  kingdom  over 
which  he  is  to  rule. 

Here  is  where  the  preacher  and  the  poet  touch. 
Every  true  preacher  must  be  a  poet,  at  least  in  so 
far  as  to  see  behind  all  the  imperfections  of  men  a 
certain  ideal  manhood  from  which  they  have  never 
separated,  which  underlies  the  life  and  lends  its  value 
to  the  blurred  and  broken  character  of  every  one.  A 
belief  in  the  Incarnation,  in  the  divine  Son  of  Man, 
makes  such  poets  of  us  all.  It  is  interesting  to  see 
in  how  many  ministers  the  hopefulness  of  this  ideal 
poetic  view  of  human  life  overcomes  the  tendencies 
of  natural  temperament,  the  discouragement  of  pov- 
erty and  disease,  and  the  disenchanting  influence  of 
intercourse  with  men,  and  keeps  ministers  the  most 
hopeful  class  of  men.  They  are  always  standing 
where,  if  they  will,  they  may  listen  for  the  bells  that 
shall  "  ring  in  the  Christ  that  is  to  be."    I  have  seen 


THE    VALUE   OF  THE  HUMAN  SOUL.  263 

ministers  try  to  crush  back  this  noble  tendency  of 
their  vocation  and  to  assume  a  cynicism  and  a  hope- 
lessness which  they  did  not  feel,  so  that  other  men 
might  not  call  them  childish.  And  I  have  seen  men 
of  the  world  disappointed  when  they  came  to  such 
ministers  and  did  not  find  in  them  the  childlike  hope 
and  trust  that  they  expected,  but  only  false  and  de- 
spairing thoughts  of  human  nature  like  their  own ;  as 
if  the  ice  came  up  to  the  fii'e  to  warm  itself,  and  found 
the  fire  ashamed  of  being  warm  and  trying  hard  to 
make  itself  as  cold  as  ice. 

I  might  dwell,  also,  on  this  value  of  the  human  soul 
for  its  own  sake,  as  constituting  the  constant  reserve 
of  pleasure  in  the  ministry.  There  are  other  pleasures 
in  our  work,  as  I  have  recounted  to  you  already  j  but 
they  are  all,  to  a  certain  extent,  dependent  upon  cir- 
cumstances. A  parish  uproar  which  reveals  the  bad 
reality  of  life  may  scatter  some  of  them.  Poverty, 
which  deprives  you  of  the  means  of  culture,  and  takes 
away  the  power  of  carrying  out  your  plans,  may  rob 
you  of  others.  But  the  mere  pleasure  of  dealing  with 
man  as  man,  as  a  being  valuable  in  himself,  for  this 
no  peculiar  happiness  of  circumstances  is  needed. 
Wherever  men  are,  you  may  have  it.  Nobody  but 
Robinson  Crusoe  is  shut  out  from  it,  and  even  to 
him  the  man  Friday  is  sure  to  come. 

And  herein  lies  the  real  fellowship  of  the  ministry. 
There  are  no  feUow-workers  who  come  so  close  to- 


264        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

gether  as  fellow- workers  in  the  ministry  of  the  Gospel  j 
and  their  companionship  is  closest  when  they  most 
deeply  know  this  truth  of  the  essential  value  of  the 
human  soul.  A  preacher  comes  to  me  from  Africa,  or 
from  some  church  of  another  denomination  in  the 
next  street,  which  often  seems  farther  off  than  Africa. 
It  depends  upon  what  the  power  of  our  preaching  is, 
how  near  we  come  together.  If  we  are  both  given  to 
machineries,  each  of  us  valuing  only  what  a  certain 
sort  of  people  may  become  under  the  peculiar  culture 
of  the  denomination  which  he  represents,  then  we  talk 
together,  however  pleasantly,  only  over  our  fences, 
and  shake  hands,  however  cordia,lly,  only  through 
the  slats.  If  we  both  really  value  the  soul  of  man,  we 
understand  each  other ;  the  different  methods  of  our 
work  do  not  keep  us  apart,  but  bring  us  together,  for 
they  are  the  means  by  which  we  manifest  to  one  an- 
other the  deep  motive  which  is  the  power  of  both  oiu' 
lives.  The  fences  are  turned  into  bridges.  Certainly, 
Christian  union,  whenever  it  comes,  must  come  thus : 
not  by  compromise  and  the  adjustment  of  various 
forms  of  government  and  worship,  but  by  the  devel- 
opment in  all  preachers  of  aU  kinds  of  that  value  for 
man  in  Christ  which  burrows  far  beneath  the  differ- 
ences of  forms  and  flies  far  above  them.  It  may  be 
given  to  some  people  in  these  days  to  take  direct  steps 
towards  organic  Christian  union.  I  bid  them  God- 
speed.    But  if  that  is  not  our  task  let  us  know,  and 


THE    VALUE   OF  THE  HUMAN  SOUL.  265 

let  us  rejoice  in  knowing,  that  we  are  doing,  perhaps, 
as  much  as  they  for  the  millennium,  if,  in  ourselves  and 
those  who  hear  us,  by  whatever  partial  name  we  and 
they  may  be  called,  we  are  doing  what  we  can  to  make 
strong  that  sense  of  the  value  of  the  human  soul  which, 
by  its  very  nature,  is  universal,  and  cannot  be  partial. 
Here  is  where  the  zealous  partisan,  who  is  at  the  same 
time  an  earnest  Christian,  is  often  working  better  than 
he  knows.  He  is  like  a  jealous  farmer  who  prays  for 
rain  to  water  his  field  that  it  may  be  richer  than  his 
neighboi*'s ;  but  the  heaven  is  too  broad  for  him,  and 
will  not  limit  its  bounty  by  the  intention  of  his  prayer. 
It  will  rain,  but  it  cannot  rain  between  fences ;  and  so 
his  selfish  prayer  brings  refreshment  for  the  alien 
acres  for  which  he  does  not  pray. 

And  as  this  power  in  the  ministry  lies  deepest,  so 
it  lasts  longest.  The  veteran  preacher,  I  think,  keeps 
the  enjoyment  and  tries  to  keep  the  practice  of  his 
work  later  in  life  than  the  veteran  in  almost  any  other 
occupation.  That  always  seems  to  me  a  touching  and 
convincing  proof  of  the  excellence  of  our  calling.  It 
shows  better  and  better  as  it  grows  older.  The  de- 
lightful French  artist,  Millet,  used  to  say  to  his  pupils : 
^' The  end  of  the  day  is  the  proof  of  a  picture" — ^^ La 
fin  du  jour,  c'est  Pepreuve  d'un  tableau."  He  meant 
that  the  twilight  hour,  when  there  is  not  light  enough 
to  distinguish  details,  is  the  most  favorable  time  to 
judge  of  a  picture  as  a  whole.     And  so  it  is  with  the 


266        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

ministry.  When  the  cross-Ughts  of  jealous  emulation 
and  the  glare  of  constant  notoriety  are  softening  to- 
wards the  darkness  in  which  Ues  the  pure  judgment 
of  God  and  the  peace  of  being  forgotten  by  mankind, 
then  that  which  has  been  lying  behind  them  all  the 
time  comes  out ;  and  the  old  preacher  who  has  ceased 
to  care  whether  men  praise  or  blame  him,  who  has 
attained  or  missed  all  that  there  is  for  him  of  success 
or  failure  here,  preaches  on  still  out  of  the  pure  sense 
of  how  precious  the  soul  of  man  is,  and  the  pure  de- 
sire to  serve  a  little  more  that  which  is  so  worthy  of 
his  service,  before  he  goes. 

Let  me  follow  still  farther  the  enumeration  of  the 
qualities  which  grow  up  in  the  preacher  from  his 
value  for  the  human  soul.  Courage  is  one  of  its  most 
necessary  results.  The  truest  way  not  to  be  afraid  of 
the  worst  part  of  a  man  is  to  value  and  try  to  serve 
his  better  part.  The  patriot  who  really  appreciates 
the  valuable  principles  of  his  nation's  life  is  he  who 
most  intrepidly  rebukes  the  nation's  faults.  And 
Christ  was  all  the  more  independent  of  men's  whims 
because  of  His  profound  love  for  them  and  complete 
consecration  to  their  needs.  There  come  three  stages 
in  this  matter :  the  first,  a  flippant  superiority  which 
despises  the  people  and  thinks  of  them  as  only  made 
to  take  what  the  preacher  chooses  to  give  to  them,  and 
to  minister  to  his  support ;  the  second,  a  servile  syco- 
phancy which  watches  all  their  fancies,  and  tries  to 


THE    VALVE   OF  THE  HUMAN  SOUL.  267 

blow  whichever  way  their  vane  points ;  and  the  third, 
a  deep  respect  which  cares  too  earnestly  for  what  the 
people  are  capable  of  being  to  let  them  anywhere  fall 
short  of  it  without  a  strong  remonstrance.  You  have 
seen  all  tlu-ee  in  the  way  in  which  parents  treat  their 
children.  I  could  show  you  each  of  the  three  to-day 
in  the  relation  of  different  preachers  to  theii*  parishes. 
Believe  me,  the  last  is  the  only  true  independence,  the 
only  one  that  it  is  worth  while  to  seek,  or  indeed  that 
a  man  has  any  right  to  seek.  An  actor  may  encour- 
age himself  by  despising  or  forgetting  his  audience, 
but  a  preacher  must  go  elsewhere  for  courage.  The 
more  you  prize  the  spiritual  nature  of  your  people, 
the  more  able  you  will  be  to  oppose  their  whims. 
There  must  be  the  fountain  of  your  independence. 

And  here,  too,  is  the  power  of  simplicity  and  abso- 
lute reality.  All  turgid  rhetoric,  all  false  ornament, 
all  doctrinal  fantasticalness  niust  disappear  in  the 
presence  of  a  supreme  absorbing  value  for  the  souls 
of  men.  The  conscience  and  the  taste,  when  both  are 
pure,  will  coincide.  Every  divorce  which  separates 
them  is  a  parting  of  what  God  has  joined  together. 
The  two  are  most  essentially  united  in  the  functions 
of  our  sacred  office.  The  man  whose  eye  is  set  upon 
the  souls  of  men,  and  whose  heart  burns  with  the  de- 
sire to  save  them,  chooses  with  an  almost  unerring  in- 
stinct what  figure  will  set  the  truth  most  clearly  before 
their  minds,  what  form  of  appeal  will  bring  it  most 


268        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

strongly  to  their  sluggish  wills.  He  takes  those  and 
rejects  every  other.  The  mere  un warlike  citizen  goes 
lounging  through  the  Tower  of  London,  and  among 
the  old  armor  there  he  praises  that  which  he  calls 
beautiful.  The  soldier  walks  through  the  same  halls, 
and,  with  a  soldier's  instinct,  thinks  no  armor  beauti- 
ful which  will  not  kill  the  enemy  or  protect  the  man 
who  wears  it.  That  is  the  final  principle  of  all  right 
choice,  the  touchstone  of  good  taste.  The  sermon  is 
to  be  sacrificed  to  the  soul,  the  system  of  work  to  the 
purpose  of  work  always.  It  strikes  at  the  root  of  all 
clerical  fastidiousness  and  the  tyranny  of  order.  It 
is  wonderful  how  the  character  of  all  ornament  in  a 
sermon  declares  itself.  That  which  really  belongs  to 
the  purpose  of  the  sermon  is  always  good.  That 
which  is  there  for  its  own  sake  every  pui*e  taste,  how- 
ever untrained,  instantly  feels  to  be  bad.  The  one  is 
like  the  sculpture  on  an  old  cathedral  which,  however 
rude,  was  meant  to  teU  a  story.  The  other  is  like  the 
carving  on  our  house-fronts  w^liich  is  meant  merely  to 
look  pretty,  and  so  fails  of  even  that.  There  are  some 
men  born  to  positions  of  such  dignity  that  they  are 
doomed  to  be  either  illustrious  or  ridiculous.  And  so 
ornament  when  it  is  applied  to  a  sermon  must  either 
do  the  lofty  work  of  making  truth  plain  and  glorious 
or  it  fails  of  everything.  It  cannot  be  allowed  simply 
to  amuse  or  please  as  may  the  ornament  of  an  essay 
or  a  poem. 


THE    VALUE  OF  THE  HUMAN  SOUL.  269 

But  our  principle  goes  deeper  than  this.  This  con- 
trolling value  of  the  human  soul  must  save  a  preacher, 
also,  from  a  narrow  treatment  of  the  souls  under  his 
care.  If  he  values  them  more  than  any  theory  of  his 
own  about  how  souls  generally  are  to  be  treated,  he 
will  be  broad  and  try  only  to  lead  each  into  that  en- 
tire obedience  to  God  which  results  in  such  different 
experiences  for  us  all.  The  ascetic  theorist  values 
self-sacrifice  for  its  own  sake  and  would  enforce  it  in- 
discriminately. The  theorist  of  self-indulgence  says, 
"  No,  pain  is  a  curse.  Pleasure  is  good.  Shun  pain. 
Do  what  is  pleasant."  The  teacher  who  values  the 
souls  which  he  teaches  more  than  any  theory  says 
something  different  from  either.  He  says,  ^^  Not  en- 
joyment and  not  sorrow,  but  the  meeting  of  your  will 
with  the  will  of  God,  whatever  it  may  bring,  is  the 
purpose  of  all  discipline.  Be  ready  for  any  way  which 
God  shall  choose  to  bring  your  will  to  His."  But  to 
this  large  wisdom  no  teacher  can  be  brought  except 
by  a  true  sense  of  the  preciousness  of  the  soul  of  man. 

It  cannot  be  denied,  and  it  must  not  be  forgotten, 
that  this  absorbing  conviction  of  the  value  of  the  hu- 
man soul  has  its  besetting  danger.  That  danger  is 
not  slight  nor  casual.  It  is  important  and  essential. 
The  danger  is  lest,  in  our  eagerness  to  help  the  spirit- 
ual nature  which  we  so  highly  value,  we  should  be  led 
to  judge  of  the  truth  of  any  idea  by  what  we  think 
might  be  its  influences  on  the  soul  for  which  we  are  so 


270  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

anxious.  The  tendency  to  estimate  and  treat  ideas 
according  to  what  appear  their  probable  effects  on 
human  character  has  been,  no  doubt,  a  great  besetting 
sin  of  spiritual  teachers  always.  I  suppose  that  it  can- 
not be  wholly  separated  from  any  vocation  which  is 
bound  at  once  to  seek  for  truth  and  to  educate 
character.  This  is  the  way  in  which  a  great  deal  of 
half-beheved  doctrine  comes  to  be  clinging  to  and 
cumbering  the  Church.  Men  insist  on  believing  and 
on  having  other  people  believe  certain  doctrines, 
not  because  they  are  reasonably  demonstrated  to  be 
true,  but  because,  in  the  present  state  of  things,  it 
would  be  dangerous  to  give  them  up.  This  is  the 
way  in  which  one  man  clings  to  his  idea  of  verbal  in- 
spiration, and  another  to  his  special  theory  of  the  di- 
vine justice,  and  another  to  his  material  notion  of  the 
resurrection,  and  yet  another  to  his  notion  of  the 
Church's  authority  and  the  minister's  commission.  It 
is  a  very  dangerous  danger,  because  it  wears  the  cloak 
of  such  a  good  motive ;  but  it  is  big  with  all  the  evil 
fruits  of  superstition.  It  starts  with  a  lack  of  faith 
in  the  people  and  in  truth  and  in  God.  Jesus  bids 
us  not  to  cast  pearls  before  swine,  but  he  does  not 
bid  us  to  feed  even  swine  on  pebbles.  '■'■  God  forbid," 
says  Bishop  Watson,  "that  the  search  after  truth 
should  be  discouraged  for  fear  of  its  consequences. 
The  consequences  of  truth  may  be  subversive  of  sys- 
tems of  superstition,  but  they  can  never  be  injurious 


THE    VALUE  OF  THE  HUMAN  SOUL.  271 

to  the  rights  or  well-founded  expectations  of  the  hu- 
man race."  There  is  nothing  that  one  would  wish  to 
say  more  earnestly  to  our  young  and  ardent  ministers 
than  this :  Never  sacrifice  your  reverence  for  timth 
to  your  desire  for  usefulness.  Say  nothing  which  you 
do  not  believe  to  be  true  because  you  think  it  may  be 
helpful.  Keep  back  nothing  which  you  know  to  be 
true  because  you  think  it  may  be  harmful.  Who  are 
you  that  you  should  stint  the  children's  drinking  from 
the  cup  which  their  Father  bids  you  to  carry  to  them,  or 
mix  it  with  error  because  you  think  they  cannot  bear 
it  in  its  purity  ?  We  must  learn  in  the  first  place  to 
form  our  own  judgments  of  what  teachings  are  true 
by  other  tests  than  the  consequences  which  we  think 
those  teachings  will  produce  j  and  then,  when  we  have 
formed  our  judgments,  we  must  trust  the  truth  that 
we  believe  and  the  God  from  whom  it  comes,  and  tell 
it  freely  to  the  people.  He  is  saved  from  one  of  the 
great  temptations  of  the  ministry  who  goes  out  to  his 
work  with  a  clear  and  constant  certainty  that  truth 
is  always  strong,  no  matter  how  weak  it  looks,  and 
falsehood  is  always  weak,  no  matter  how  strong  it 
looks. 

But  if  we  bear  this  danger  in  our  minds  and  are 
upon  our  guard  against  it,  then  the  value  for  our  breth- 
ren's souls  wiU  help  us  to  avoid  many  false  standards. 
It  will  give  interest  to  manj^  people  whom  otherwise 
we  should  find  very  uninteresting.     There  is  much  in 


272        LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

the  minister's  training  to  make  him  value  purely  in- 
tellectual companionships.  There  is  a  tendency  in 
many  ministers,  whose  disposition  leads  them  to  value 
truth  more  than  men,  to  let  themselves  be  drawn  al- 
most exclusively  into  the  society  of  those  whose  ways 
of  thought  are  like  their  own.  I  think  it  is  a  wonder 
to  many  people  who  are  not  ministers,  how  one  man 
who  is  the  pastor  of  a  great  parish  can  be  genuinely 
interested  in  so  many  people  of  such  various  char- 
acters and  lives.  A  good  many  people,  and  even  some 
clergymen,  take  it  for  granted  that  it  is  not  possible, 
and  treat  the  appearance  of  such  universal  interest  as 
a  pretence,  necessary  in  order  to  keep  up  the  parish 
feehng,  and  so  a  very  valuable  accomplishment  in  a 
minister.  But  it  is  not  so.  No  man  ever  did  it  suc- 
cessfully, year  after  year,  as  a  pretence.  The  secret  of 
it  all  is  simply  the  great  sense  of  the  value  of  the  hu- 
man soul  brought  home  and  individuahzed  upon  these 
human  souls  committed  to  our  care,  as  a  magistrate 
sees  all  the  dignity  of  the  law  represented  in  the  set- 
tlement of  the  petty  quarrel  that  is  brought  before  his 
court.  The  large  conception  of  the  value  of  humanity 
must  go  before  the  special  value  of  one's  own  parish- 
ioners, otherwise  the  pastoral  relation  softens  into 
mere  personal  fondness,  or  else  hardens  into  a  rigid 
and  formal  treatment  of  the  people  according  to  arbi- 
trary classifications  which  lose  alike  their  general  hu- 
manity and  their  personal  distinctness.     There  is  a 


THE    VALUE   OF  THE  HUMAN  SOUL.  273 

ministry  which  is  all  the  more  personal  because  of  its 
broad  humanness  5  a  ministry  which,  beginning  with 
the  sacredness  of  man,  counts  all  men  sacred,  and 
touches,  with  its  own  peculiar  pressure  upon  each,  the 
hves  of  strong  men  and  little  childi^en,  of  women  and 
boys  and  girls,  of  working-people  and  people  of  idle 
lives,  of  saints  and  sinners,  as  the  rain  and  dew  of 
God  which  water  the  earth  feed  both  the  oak-tree  and 
the  violet ;  a  ministry  which  makes  its  care  for  every 
soul  dearer  and  more  sacred  to  that  soul  because  it  is 
evidently  no  mere  personal  fondness,  but  one  utter- 
ance of  that  Christliness  which  deeply  feels  the  pre- 
ciousness  of  the  souls  of  aU  God's  children. 

I  have  not  time  to  dwell  upon  the  help  which  a  per- 
petual value  for  the  souls  of  men  must  render  to  our 
own  spiritual  life,  and  so  to  our  efficiency  as  preachers. 
Indeed,  it  is  the  great  power  by  which  our  souls  must 
grow.  This  is  the  ministry  of  the  people  to  the 
preacher,  which  is  often  greater  than  any  ministry 
that  the  preacher  can  render  to  the  people.  I  assure 
you  that  the  relation  between  the  pastor  and  his  par- 
ish is  not  right  if  the  pastor  thinks  the  obligation  to 
be  all  upon  one  side ;  if  while  he  lives  with  them  and 
when  he  leaves  them  he  is  not  always  full'bf  gratitude 
for  what  they  have  done  for  him.  A  pastor  who  is 
insensible  to  this  cannot  do  the  best  good  to  his  peo- 
ple. And  the  sort  of  help  which  a  minister  gets  from 
his  congregation  whose  souls  he  values  is  a  direct  com- 


274        LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

plement  of  the  good  which  he  gets  from  his  study. 
He  needs  them  both.  His  study  furnishes  him  with 
ideas,  with  intellectual  conceptions,  and  his  congrega- 
tion furnishes  him  with  an  atmosphere  in  which  these 
ideas  ripen  to  their  best  result.  The  minister  as  he 
grows  older  changes  some  of  the  opinions  which  he 
used  to  hold.  The  new  opinions,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  are 
truer  than  the  old  ones.  But  greater  than  all  such 
changes  are  the  deepening  convictions  about  all  spir- 
itual things  which  come  from  the  long  years  of  deal- 
ing with  men's  souls  and  which  color  every  opinion 
whether  new  or  old.  The  conviction  that  truth  and 
destiny  are  essential  and  not  arbitrary,  that  Chris- 
tianity is  the  personal  love  and  service  of  Christ,  and 
that  salvation  is  positive,  not  negative, — convictions 
such  as  these  they  are  that  fill  and  richen  the  preach- 
er's maturer  years ;  and  they  are  convictions  whose 
clearness  and  strength  he  owes  to  that  occupation 
which  has  both  demanded  and  cultivated  a  value  for 
the  souls  of  men. 

As  to  the  nature  of  this  value  for  the  human  soul, 
notice,  I  beg  you,  that  it  is  something  more  than  the 
mere  sense  of  the  soul's  danger.  It  is  a  deliberate 
estimate  set  upon  man's  spiritual  nature  in  view  of  its 
possibilities.  The  danger  in  which  that  nature  stands 
by  sin  intensifies  and  emphasizes  the  value  which  we 
set  upon  it,  but  it  does  not  create  that  value.  I  think 
that  this  is  important.     I  think  that  we  are  sometimes 


THE    VALUE   OF  THE  HUMAN  SOUL.  275 

apt  to  let  our  anxiety  for  the  salvation  of  souls  de- 
generate into  a  mere  pity  for  the  misery  into  which 
they  may  be  brought  by  sin  j  and  the  result  of  such  a 
low  thought  is  that  when  we  have  been  brought  to 
believe  that  a  soul  is,  as  we  say,  "  safe/'  that  it  has 
been  forgiven  and  will  not  be  punished,  we  are  satis- 
fied. The  thought  of  rescue  has  monopolized  our  re- 
ligion and  often  crowded  out  the  thought  of  culture. 
I  think  that  the  tone  of  the  New  Testament  is  differ- 
ent from  this.  I  know  how  eminently  there  the  truths 
of  danger  and  rescue  always  appear.  I  know  that 
Christ  "  came  not  to  call  the  righteous,  but  sinners  to 
repentance,"  and  that  He  was  called  Jesus  because  He 
should  "  save  His  people  from  their  sins  " ;  but  all  the 
time  behind  the  danger  lies  the  value  of  that  spiritual 
nature  which  is  thus  in  peril.  It  is  not  solely  or  princi- 
pally the  suffering  which  the  soul  must  undergo ;  it  is 
the  loss  of  the  soul  itself,  its  failure  to  be  the  bright 
and  wonderful  thing  which,  as  the  soul  of  God's  child, 
it  ought  to  be.  That  is  the  reason  why  the  process  of 
salvation  cannot  stop  with  the  removal  of  penalties 
and  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  It  must  include  all  the 
gradual  perfection  of  the  soul  by  faith  and  love  and 
obedience  and  patience.  This  is  the  reason,  too,  why 
those  who  have  taken  only  a  half  view  of  the  complete 
salvation  are  apt  to  be  severe  on  those  who  have  seen 
only  the  other  half.  Half  a  truth  is  often  more  jeal- 
ous of  the  other  half  than  of  an  error. 


276  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

This  larger  and  deeper  value  for  the  human  soul,  I 
think,  is  seen  in  all  the  sermons  of  the  greatest  preach- 
ers. It  is  not  mere  pity  for  danger  that  inspires  them 
to  plead  with  men.  That  might  move  them  to  a  sort 
of  supercilious  exertion,  no  matter  how  intrinsically 
worthless  was  the  thing  in  peril,  as  one  might  start 
up  to  pluck  even  an  insect  from  the  candle's  flame. 
But  it  is  a  glowing  vision  of  how  great  and  beautiful 
the  soul  of  man  might  be,  of  what  great  things  it 
might  do  if  it  were  thoroughly  purified  and  possessed 
by  the  love  of  God  and  so  opened  free  channels  to 
His  power. 

There  are  special  causes  which  make  this  great 
power  of  which  I  have  been  speaking,  the  sense  of  the 
value  of  the  soul,  more  diflicult  to  win  and  keep  in 
this  age  of  ours  than  it  has  been  in  many  other  times. 
There  are  two  characteristics  of  our  time  which  have 
their  influence  upon  it.  One  is  the  tendency  of  i)hi- 
losophy  to  divert  itself  from  man  and  turn  towards 
othei*  nature,  and  in  its  study  of  man  to  busy  itself 
least  with  his  spiritual  nature,  most  with  his  physical 
history.  The  other  is  the  strong  philanthropic  dispo- 
sition which  prevails  about  us,  the  desire  to  relieve 
human  suffering  and  to  promote  human  comfort  and 
intelligence.  The  first  of  these  tendencies  would  cer- 
tainly make  it  more  than  usually  hard  to  realize  the 
spiritual  value  of  humanity ;  and  the  second,  while  it 
makes  much  of  man,  cares  mainly  for  his  material 


THE    VALUE  OF  THE  HUMAN  SOUL.  211 

well-being  and  is  always  disposed  to  treat  the  individ- 
ual as  subservient  to  the  interests  of  the  mass.  The 
general  result  is  one  of  which  I  think  that  there  can 
be  no  doubt,  a  difficulty  in  the  real,  vivid,  perpetual 
sense  of  the  worth  of  man's  spiritual  nature  such  as 
has  very  rarely  beset  those  in  other  ages  who  have 
tried  to  serve  their  fellow-men.  At  such  a  time  we 
need  to  hold  very  strongly  to  the  constant  facts  of 
human  life  which  He  below  all  such  temporary 
changes,  and  to  be  very  sure  of  their  reappearance. 
We  need  a  keen,  quick-sighted  faith  which  shall  dis- 
cover the  first  signs  of  what  must  surely  come,  a  reac- 
tion from  the  partial  tendencies  of  the  time.  We 
need  a  generous  fairness  to  discover  thought  and 
feeling  which  is  really  spiritual,  but  which  has  cloaked 
itself,  even  to  its  own  confusion,  in  the  forms  and 
phrases  of  the  time. 

But,  more  than  all  of  these,  we  who  are  preaching  in 
such  days  as  these  need  to  understand  these  methods 
by  which  in  any  time  we  must  acquire  and  presei've 
the  sense  of  the  preciousness  of  the  human  soul. 
What  are  these  methods  ?  First  of  all,  before  a  man 
can  value  the  souls  of  other  men,  he  must  have  learnt 
to  value  his  own  soul  And  a  man  learns  to  value 
his  own  soul  only  as  he  is  conscious  of  the  solemn 
touches  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  upon  it.  Ah,  my 
friends,  here  is  the  real  reason  why  he  who  preaches 
to  the  inner  life  of  others  must  himself  have  had  an 


278        LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

inner  life.  Not  that  he  may  take  his  own  experience 
and  narrowly  make  it  the  type  to  which  all  other  ex- 
periences must  conform,  but  that,  having  learnt  how 
God  loves  him,  having  felt  in  many  a  silent  hour  and 
many  a  tumultuous  crisis  the  pressure  of  God's  hands 
full  of  care  and  wisdom,  he  may  know,  as  he  l^ks 
from  his  pulpit,  that  behind  every  one  of  those  faces 
into  which  he  looks  there  is  a  soul  for  which  God 
cares  with  the  same  thoughtfulness.  In  his  closet  he 
has  fii'st  seen  the  hght  which  from  his  closet  he  car- 
ries forth  to  illuminate  the  humanity  of  his  congrega- 
tion and  bring  out  all  its  colors.  The  personal  desire 
to  be  pure  and  holy,  the  personal  consciousness  of 
power  to  be  pure  and  holy  through  Chi'ist,  reveals  the 
possibihty  of  other  men. 

Again,  a  preacher's  ^dew  of  all  theology  ought  to 
be  colored  with  the  preciousness  of  the  human  soul. 
It  is  possible  for  two  men  to  hold  the  same  doctrine 
and  yet  to  differ  very  widely  in  this  respect.  To  one 
of  them  the  Christian  truths  reveal  much  of  the  glory 
and  mercy  of  God,  to  the  other  they  shine  also  with 
the  value  of  the  spiritual  manhood.  To  this  last  the 
Incarnation  reveals  the  essential  dignity  of  that  na- 
ture into  union  with  which  the  Deitj^  could  so  mar- 
vellously enter.  The  Redemption  bears  witness  of 
the  unspeakable  love  of  God,  but  also  of  the  value 
underneath  the  sin  of  man,  which  made  the  jewel 
worth  cleaning.     And  all  the  methods  of  Sanctifica- 


THE    VALUE   OF  THE  HUMAN  SOUL.  279 

tion,  all  the  disciplines  of  the  Spirit,  open  before  the 
watchful  minister  new  insight  into  the  possibilities  of 
that  being  upon  whom  such  bounty  of  grace  is  lav- 
ished. I  think  that  we  ought  to  distrust  at  least  the 
form  in  which  we  are  holding  any  theological  idea,  if 
it  is  not  helping  to  deepen  in  us  the  sense  of  the  pre- 
ciousness  of  the  human  soul,  first  impressing  it  as  a 
conviction  and  then  firing  it  into  a  passion.  There  is 
not  one  truth  which  man  may  know  of  God  which 
does  not  legitimately  bear  this  fruit.  I  beg  you  more 
and  more  to  test  the  way  in  which  you  hold  the  truth 
of  God  by  the  power  which  it  has  to  fill  you  with 
honor  for  the  spiritual  life  of  man. 

It  is  evident  as  we  look  at  the  ministry  of  Jesus 
that  He  was  full  of  reverence  for  the  nature  of  the 
men  and  women  whom  He  met.  There  was  nothing 
which  He  knew  of  God  which  did  not  make  His 
Father's  children  precious  to  Him.  We  see  it  even 
in  His  lofty  and  tender  courtesy.  How  often  I  have 
seen  a  minister's  manners  either  proudly  distant  and 
conscious  of  his  own  importance,  or  fulsome  and 
fawning  with  a  feeble  affectionateness  that  was  un- 
worthy of  a  man,  and  have  thought  that  what  he 
needed  was  that  noble  union  of  dignity  and  gentle- 
ness which  came  to  Jesus  from  His  divine  insight 
into  the  value  of  the  human  soul. 

One  other  source  from  which  the  knowledge  of  this 
value  comes  let  me  mention  in  a  single  word.     It  is 


280        LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

by  working  for  the  soul  that  we  best  learn  what  the 
soul  is  worth.  If  ever  in  your  ministry  the  souls  of 
those  committed  to  your  care  grow  dull  before  you, 
and  you  doubt  whether  they  have  any  such  value  that 
you  should  give  your  life  for  them,  go  out  and  work 
for  them;  and  as  you  work  their  value  shall  grow 
clear  to  you.  Go  and  try  to  save  a  soul  and  you  will 
see  how  weU  it  is  worth  saving,  how  capable  it  is  of 
the  most  complete  salvation.  Not  by  pondering  upon 
it,  nor  by  talking  of  it,  but  by  serving  it  you  learn  its 
preciousness.  So  the  father  learns  the  value  of  his 
child,  and  the  teacher  of  his  scholar,  and  the  patriot 
of  his  native  land.  And  so  the  Christian,  living  and 
dying  for  his  brethren's  souls,  learns  the  value  of 
those  souls  for  which  Christ  lived  and  died. 

And  if  you  ask  me  whether  this  whose  theory  I 
have  been  stating  is  indeed  true  in  fact,  whether  in 
daily  work  for  souls  year  after  year  a  man  does  see 
in  those  souls  glimpses  of  such  a  value  as  not  merely 
justifies  the  little  work  which  he  does,  but  even 
makes  credible  the  work  of  Christ,  I  answer,  surely^ 
f^^  AU  other  interest  and  satisfaction  of  the  min- 
istry completes  itseK  in  this,  that  year  by  year  the 
minister  sees  more  deeply  how  well  worthy  of  infi- 
nitely more  than  he  can  do  for  it  is  the  himian  soul  for 
which  he  works. 

I  do  not  know  how  I  can  better  close  my  lectures 
to  you  than  with  that  testimony.     May  you  find  it 


THE    VALUE   OF  THE  HUMAN  SOUL.  281 

true  in  your  experience.  May  the  souls  of  men  be 
always  more  precious  to  you  as  you  come  always 
nearer  to  Christ,  and  see  them  more  perfectly  as  He 
does.  I  can  ask  no  better  blessing  on  your  ministry 
than  that. 

And  so  may  God  our  Father  guide  and  keep  you 
always. 


THE  END. 


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